Nigeria’s worsening security crisis is, at its core, a story of military breakdown. The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) overran at least 15 military bases in 2025, captured and executed a brigadier general, and deployed armed drones that outmatched the defending units. The pattern of base overruns, mass desertions, and failure to reinforce troops under attack points to deep organizational failure.

Events like the February 2026 Kwara massacre, in which jihadists killed over 200 people as well as the December 2025 U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile strikes on Nigerian soil and the deployment of American troops amount to the clearest sign yet that Africa’s most populous nation can no longer secure itself.

The Mosul Parallel

Iraq, before the fall of Mosul in 2014, offers the closest comparison. When 1,500 ISIS fighters routed 60,000 Iraqi soldiers, the collapse came not from lack of firepower but from corruption. The Iraqi military had roughly 50,000 ghost soldiers on its payroll, troops who existed only on paper so commanders could pocket their salaries. Nigeria faces the same problem. Leaked UK diplomatic cables found that of the 20,000 troops Nigeria claims to deploy in the northeast, the real number is significantly lower, with thousands of ghost soldiers generating salaries collected by officers. The corruption is not incidental; it is systemic. Transparency International gave Nigeria’s defense sector an ‘E’ rating for “very high” corruption risk.

The human cost falls on ordinary soldiers. A Nigerian private earns $31 to $38 per month. Soldiers spend three to five years deployed without rotation, creating conditions for mass desertion. Iraq’s military eventually reformed after Mosul through fingerprint-based troop verification and coalition mentoring, but that reform only happened because Mosul was a shock too large to ignore. Nigeria faces a harder problem, a slow bleed rather than a single catastrophe, which gives political leaders room to delay action indefinitely.

ISWAP’s Tactical Evolution and the Sahel Corridor

ISWAP’s 2025 “Camp Holocaust” campaign has been the most successful in the group’s history. ISWAP systematically destroyed forward operating bases across the Lake Chad Basin using drones, night-vision gear, and coordinated swarm attacks. The capture and execution of Brigadier General Musa Uba in November 2025 was not simply a battlefield loss. It revealed that ISWAP now operates with better intelligence than the forces it fights. ISWAP intercepted his communications and tracked his position after his convoy was ambushed 88 kilometers from regional military headquarters in Maiduguri. A force with 230,000 troops and a multibillion-dollar budget could not locate its own brigade commander.

The broader Sahel security framework has collapsed around Nigeria, and the timing could not be worse. Niger’s withdrawal from the Multinational Joint Task Force in March 2025 ended joint border patrols along a vast open frontier. Into this gap has moved Lakurawa, an Islamic State Sahel Province subgroup operating across Sokoto and Kebbi states with surveillance drones. Al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM launched its first recorded attack on Nigerian soil in 2025.

The Air Power Deficit

The Nigerian Air Force shows what happens when procurement runs ahead of maintenance capacity. Three JF-17 fighters from Pakistan were delivered in 2021. By May 2023, only one could still fly. The result is an air force that cannot protect civilians or support ground troops. SBM Intelligence estimates over 400 Nigerian civilians killed in erroneous military airstrikes between 2017 and 2025. The February 2026 Woro massacre showed what this means in practice. A military aircraft appeared overhead during a ten-hour attack that killed at least 162 civilians but did not engage.

External Partners and the Limits of Assistance

The United States launched 16 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Lakurawa camps in Sokoto State on Christmas Day 2025 and deployed troops to Bauchi Airfield. CSIS assessed that one-off strikes are unlikely to reduce the terrorist threat significantly. The pattern is familiar: outside firepower treats the symptoms while the underlying disease, institutional corruption, goes unaddressed. Nigeria’s own Defense Minister Christopher Musa has acknowledged that military action addresses only 30 percent of the conflict. The International Crisis Group’s 2016 reform blueprint called for fingerprint-based troop verification and open defense spending records. It remains unimplemented a decade later.

The Coup Question and the Criminal-Terror Nexus

Recent history across the Sahel makes this risk real. In Burkina Faso and Mali, troops who felt abandoned by civilian leaders seized power. Nigeria shows each of these warning signs. Soldiers earn $31 a month while generals oversee billions in unchecked spending. The Nigerian Armed Forces mostly ruled the country between 1966 and 1999, and the memory of military government has not faded.

A second risk deepens the picture. ISWAP brings in an estimated $191 million per year by taxing trade across the Lake Chad Basin, ten times what the Borno State government collects. Furthermore northwest bandit networks took in an estimated $1.42 billion in ransom in a single year.

Every overrun  base sends vehicles, weapons, and ammunition to ISWAP and other groups, fortifying their governance with economic and military assets. This is the critical danger: the longer reform is delayed, the more these groups entrench themselves as alternative governments with independent revenue. Once that happens, as Sudan’s civil war has shown, the window for reversing the trend narrows sharply.

Outlook

The 2026 Nigerian defense budget includes 5.41 trillion naira ($3.9 billion). However, 62 percent goes to personnel costs and the naira’s collapse has cut real spending power by two-thirds since 2023. Nigerian President Tinubu’s security emergency declaration has not changed the picture. At least 316 civilians were killed across 15 states in the 71 days that followed.

Three patterns deserve attention: the self-arming cycle, where weapons from overrun bases fuel the next attack; the intelligence gap, where ISWAP knows more about the military than the military knows about ISWAP; and the governing contest, where ISWAP’s services undercut public trust in the state. Until the corruption at the heart of Nigeria’s military is confronted, no amount of outside help will change the course. The question facing Abuja is whether reform comes through deliberate action or through the kind of devastating loss that forced Iraq’s hand after Mosul.

Arman Sidhu is an American geopolitical analyst and writer. He regularly covers the commodities market, international trade, and foreign investment. He is a regular contributor to Geopolitical Monitor and his work has previously appeared in The Diplomat, Eurasia Review, Economic & Political Weekly, and RealClearWorld, among several other outlets. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Hollow Ranks & Ghost Soldiers: Nigeria’s Corruption-Fueled Security Collapse was originally published on Global Security Review.

Amid U.S. involvement in a war against Iran, President Donald J. Trump has decided to double down on previous public expressions of disregard and distrust toward NATO. President Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from NATO several times since his reelection. His repeated jibes at the alliance have raised concern among European defense experts and government officials. Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder recently noted that “It’s hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defense.” And French President Macron indicated on April 2nd that, in his view, U.S. President Trump was undermining NATO through his repeated threats to withdraw from the alliance. Raising new fears of American abandonment on the part of European leaders, Trump, in various interviews and social media posts within a few days, said that the United States “will remember” France’s refusal to assist in the war against Iran; that NATO was a “paper tiger”; and that “Putin knows that, too, by the way.”

The most recent Presidential broadsides against NATO reflected Trump’s frustration with European allies who chose not to involve themselves in the war against Iran and/or denied their political and military support for the actions taken under Operation EPIC FURY—an effort that Secretary of War, Hegseth describes as “laser-focused [to] destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure – and they will never have nuclear weapons.” But this hesitancy among European allies should not have surprised U.S. leadership. Neither NATO as an alliance nor individual European governments were consulted before the decision to go to war, nor were they fully informed until the operation was already in progress. Further to the issue of NATO support, Trump’s address to the nation on April 1st simply assumed that the United States would wind up its military operations within several weeks and would turn the problem of unblocking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz over to European countries and others. In addition, Western European governments have strong public support for putting distance between themselves and the war in Iran. Popular majorities in every country oppose the U.S. and Israeli campaign, and European opposition to the war is enhanced by Trump’s personal unpopularity on that side of the Atlantic.

An additional element in the split between Trump and NATO was the Russian interpretation of its implications for the war in Ukraine, and more broadly, for Russia’s national security strategy writ large. Prolonged U.S. commitment to war in the Middle East could deplete the availability of military assets that would otherwise be available to sustain Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia. The global spike in gas and oil prices was an obvious boon to the Russian economy and, from the standpoint of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an unwelcome distraction for European leaders from the priority of supporting Ukraine. Russia also took advantage of Epic Fury to reinforce its support for Iran by providing targeting information for Iranian missile attacks against Israel and other regional states. Russia and Iran had already been sharing technology and knowledge with respect to drone warfare even prior to the launch of military operations against Tehran.

To some extent, the volatility in the Trump administration’s approach to NATO reflected the President’s frustration at his inability to broker a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Vladimir Putin viewed Russia’s war as existential and refused to acknowledge that there was any distinction between Ukrainian and Russian civilizations, let alone sovereignties. The Ukrainians responded in kind, resisting Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory with creative use of drone technology and edgy defensive strategizing that put at risk a variety of targets in Russian territory, including bomber bases and critical infrastructure. Worse for Putin, his invasion in 2022, preceded by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, refocused NATO on its primary mission of deterrence and defense in Europe as opposed to “out of the area” operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the formerly Cold War neutral states, Sweden and Finland, were added to NATO’s membership because of Russia’s attempted coup de main against Kiev that turned into the longest and most destructive war in Europe since World War II. Caught in a trap of his own making, Putin continued to pour troops and material into the battlefields of Donbas and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine to support a more favorable negotiating position, should productive negotiations ever materialize.

Given Trump’s propensity for rearranging the deck chairs on foreign policy via Truth Social memoranda, it is conceivable that he will tone down the anti–NATO rhetoric once he has decided on a strategy for winding down the U.S. military campaign in Iran. The process of deconflicting the Strait of Hormuz will likely involve participation from European nations and other countries. Almost nobody benefits from continued bottlenecks in global shipping of oil and other vital commodities. Regardless of the outcome in Iran, the United States needs NATO, and NATO needs the United States. Without the U.S. as the indispensable leading partner, NATO Europe has insufficient nuclear or conventional deterrence against further Russian aggression. This assertion implies no disregard for the steps that the U.S. European allies have already taken since 2022 to improve the quality of their armed forces and military–industrial complexes. It is instead a recognition that the unique American nuclear deterrent and conventional war-fighting capabilities, supported by European determination to resist further Russian aggression, create a global as well as a regional deterrent for Russia and its partners (The CRINKs – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) that benefits not only NATO but also world peace. On the other hand, a divided and internally fractious NATO invites further aggression within and beyond Europe.

Stephen J. Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State Brandywine and the author of numerous works on nuclear deterrence, arms control, and military strategy. He is a senior fellow at NIDS and a recent contributor to the Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies edited by Dr. Alexander Hill (Routledge: 2025). The views of the author are his own.

Trumping NATO was originally published on Global Security Review.

The amalgamation of emerging technologies and nuclear weapons systems is significantly impacting the landscape of strategic stability. The primary problem associated with such technologies is their dual-use nature, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), hyper sonics, quantum computing, and cyber warfare. These technologies are evolving more rapidly than the treaties meant to regulate them.

The most significant emerging technology is Artificial Intelligence (AI), a prominent dual-use disruptor. In the civilian domain, it can help process large amounts of data based on its training. Meanwhile, in the nuclear domain, it affects among other things, the nuclear decision making process.

The U.S. is currently considering incorporating AI into its NC3 modernization process while maintaining a human-in-the-loop policy for launches, using AI to monitor abnormal patterns in adversary movements. Russia, on the other hand, is developing AI-driven upgrades to its automated retaliatory strike system to ensure that if the country’s leadership is decapitated, the system can autonomously verify a nuclear strike via seismic and radiation sensors before launching a retaliatory strike. These change decision timing and the deterrence dynamic.

The incorporation of hypersonic technology into delivery vehicles has revolutionized the exchange of weapons in warfare. The speed at which hypersonic systems travel can exceed Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound), potentially inducing miscalculation for an adversary, since it compresses the time window to clearly assess whether a missile is conventional or nuclear. In late 2024 and early 2025, India tested its Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) technology. Since these vehicles travel at such high speeds and at low altitudes with the ability to maneuver, it impacts the deterrence strategy between two nuclear countries. In response, Pakistan accelerated the Fatah series missiles, which are designed as flat-trajectory rockets. The geographical proximity of India and Pakistan compresses the decision-making window during a crisis.

The world’s largest naval force, the U.S. navy, is currently integrating the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic system onto Zumwalt-class destroyers. A Zumwalt-class ship may appear as a nuclear threat on radar but carries conventional weapons, risking warhead ambiguity for an adversary who might launch a nuclear strike if provoked. The recent exchange of delivery vehicles during the Iran and Israel conflict of 2024-2025 has shown the effect of hypersonic missiles in military operations. Iran used the Fattah-2 hypersonic missile, capable of Mach 5+ speeds with mid-flight maneuverability. Such weapon-delivery systems create strategic ambiguity for the adversary because they provide only a few seconds’ window to decide whether to retaliate with conventional or nuclear missiles.

Advancements in quantum computing change warfare by providing more powerful algorithms producing vulnerabilities in secure systems. Nuclear launch codes, for example, are considered among the most secure encryption systems, which cannot be broken by classical computer methods. However, with advanced quantum computing methods, they become more vulnerable to hacking.

Additionally, Quantum sensing, which is facilitated with quantum electronic systems, allow for detection of minute changes in gravity or magnetic fields, which could produce systems that detect submarines, reducing their element of surprise. For example, China has made a huge leap by developing Quantum SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) sensors. These devices may be able to detect the magnetic signature of US Ohio-class stealth submarines from miles away, threatening the ultimate nuclear deterrent.

Cyber warfare has recently moved to the forefront of modern warfare tactics with potential impacts on nuclear deterrence. Cyber warfare may produce uncertainties due to disruption of detection mechanisms and nuclear command and control that could produce unstable strategic situations. The classic Cold War model of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was based on the visible, slow-moving, threat of nuclear weapons exchange. Cyber warfare introduces complexity and confusion. Thus, the deliberate nature of threats; instead, may instigate miscalculations driven by algorithms or false cyber signals.

A good example of how cyber operations can offset traditional military operations was the venture to physically damage Iranian nuclear centrifuges using malicious software (malware). The operation was carried out using Stuxnet malware installed from a USB drive that destroyed centrifuges without a single kinetic device. Similarly, Russian hackers have been carrying out cyber-attacks against Ukrainian energy infrastructure and government agencies since 2015. Vis-à-vis in 2025, during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Ukrainian intelligence conducted a cyber-operation shutting down the Russian railway and affecting digital infrastructure.

A major problem lies with warhead ambiguity (conventional vs. nuclear), which poses a huge risk for accidental nuclear escalation. During the height of the May 2025 crisis between the two South Asian rivals, cyber operations were at their peak. Consequently, in the post-crisis scenario, India is enhancing its cyber deterrence. In future conflicts, any state’s cyber space will be one of the primary targets; in a scenario where lines are already blurred, a single attempt to disrupt the cyber space of NC3 could be the initiating point of nuclear escalation.

The evolution of dual-use emerging technologies is fundamentally changing the traditional pillars of nuclear deterrence by compressing the action/reaction time required for rational decision-making. A major problem lies with warhead ambiguity (conventional vs. nuclear), which poses a huge risk for accidental nuclear escalation. In the volatile context of South Asia, dual-use technologies appear to destabilize a fragile strategic stability.

Ultimately, as machines outpace human thought in the decision loop, there is a danger that the resulting disruption is not just a technological arms race but the erosion of human-centric control, creating the risk of an accidental, algorithmically driven nuclear escalation as the defining strategic challenge of the future.

Muhammad Usama Khalid is a Research Officer at the Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN), BUITEMS, Quetta. He can be reached at: usama.khalid.uk456@gmail.com. The views of the author are his own.

Nuclear Deterrence in the Age of Emerging Technologies was originally published on Global Security Review.

The ongoing conflict involving Iran, the United States, and Israel has produced one of the most significant case studies in the evolution of contemporary warfare. Iran, a state that lacks a competitive air force and possesses limited naval power, has demonstrated that ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial systems can offset some conventional disadvantages and impose serious costs on technologically superior adversaries. This development is not confined to the battlefield. It represents a doctrinal shift with lasting implications for American deterrence strategy, allied defense planning, and the long-term viability of current U.S. force structures. Understanding what Iran has and has not achieved is essential for making sound policy going forward.

The Cost-Exchange Problem 

At the operational level, Iran’s most consequential contribution has been exposing a structural vulnerability in layered air defense: the cost-exchange dilemma. Systems such as Patriot, THAAD, and Iron Dome were engineered to intercept high-value ballistic and cruise missile threats. When deployed against coordinated waves of low-cost drones and short-range missiles, these systems are forced to expend interceptors valued at hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per shot against threats that cost a fraction of that amount. The arithmetic is unsustainable at scale. As analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies have noted, saturation attacks can exhaust defensive inventories faster than replenishment is possible, creating windows of vulnerability that adversaries are quick to exploit. For the United States, this is not merely a technical problem, it is a strategic one that requires urgent attention in both procurement and doctrine.

The development of the Golden Dome missile defense architecture and expanded investment in directed energy and electronic warfare systems reflect growing official awareness that current interception models are not cost-competitive. These are necessary steps. However, technology alone cannot resolve a dilemma that is fundamentally about the economics of offense versus defense. Adversaries will adapt their tactics faster than procurement cycles can respond unless the U.S. also changes the strategic logic driving their calculations.

Attrition Without Decision: The Limits of the Iranian Model

The Iranian approach has imposed genuine costs on its adversaries, but it has not produced decisive military outcomes. This distinction is critical. Iran’s missile and drone campaigns have disrupted logistics, strained defensive inventories, and created operational uncertainty. They have not, however, defeated U.S. or Israeli military power, seized or held territory, or forced a negotiated settlement on Iranian terms. The model is one of strategic attrition, not strategic victory. Survivability and persistence are not equivalent to effectiveness, and the broader narrative of a drone revolution rendering conventional military power obsolete requires significant qualification.

The claim that air superiority is no longer a necessary condition for strategic effectiveness also warrants scrutiny. Air superiority remains essential for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; for close air support of ground operations; and for denying adversaries freedom of movement. What Iran’s campaign demonstrates is that a state without air superiority can still impose costs and delay adversary operations—not that air power has been rendered irrelevant. The bar for what air superiority can guarantee has been raised. Its strategic value, however, has not disappeared. Policymakers and analysts should resist the temptation to draw sweeping conclusions from a conflict that remains ongoing and whose full operational record is still emerging.

Implications for American Deterrence

The proliferation of precision strike capabilities across state and non-state actors undermines the assumption that technological overmatch alone is sufficient to deter conflict. When adversaries can field asymmetric capabilities that challenge U.S. and allied defenses at an acceptable cost to themselves, deterrence by denial becomes increasingly difficult to guarantee. The U.S. must prioritize cost-effective interception technologies, particularly directed energy weapons, that can neutralize mass drone and missile attacks without depleting high-value interceptor stocks. This is a resource allocation problem as much as it is an engineering one, and it demands serious engagement at the budgetary and strategic planning levels.

The Iranian model is also exportable, and this may prove to be its most consequential long-term dimension. States with limited defense budgets that are aligned with China or Russia can observe the operational lessons from this conflict and apply them in their own regional contexts. The proliferation of domestically produced or externally transferred missile and drone capabilities across the Middle East, South Asia, and the Indo-Pacific represents a compounding deterrence challenge. American extended deterrence commitments to allies in these regions will become harder to sustain if the cost-exchange problem is not structurally resolved. As Defense News reported, the proliferation of drone technology is already forcing militaries worldwide to reconsider their approach to air and missile defense.

There is also a crisis stability dimension that deserves serious attention. Rapid, sustained missile and drone strikes compress decision-making timelines and increase pressure for early, and potentially disproportionate, responses. In a multipolar environment where multiple actors possess similar strike capabilities, the risk of miscalculation is elevated. The U.S. should pursue updated arms control frameworks and diplomatic mechanisms to manage the proliferation of these systems alongside its technical and procurement investments. Deterrence cannot be reduced to hardware alone.

Conclusion

Iran’s missile and drone campaign has not rewritten the principles of warfare, but it has exposed critical assumptions underpinning American deterrence in ways that cannot be ignored. Distributed, low-cost, high-impact systems are now accessible to a wider range of actors and the gap between offensive capability and defensive cost is widening. The United States requires a

deterrence posture that integrates cost-effective defense, credible offensive options, active non-proliferation diplomacy, and sustained alliance management. Meeting this challenge demands strategic adaptation across doctrine, procurement, and diplomacy, not simply an incremental increase in interceptor production.

Dr. Tahir Mahmood Azad is currently a research scholar at the Department of Politics & International Relations, the University of Reading, UK. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Iran’s Missile-Drone Campaign and Its Implications for the United States’ Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

A nation does not need to lose a battle to look weak. Sometimes it only needs to miss a paycheck.

Washington often treats budget shutdowns as partisan spectacle, but America’s adversaries see something far more useful: a live demonstration of self-inflicted fragility. When the federal government allows frontline security personnel to work unpaid it interrupts critical security and health functions and publicly advertises institutional dysfunction. It weakens more than morale, it weakens deterrence. That is the real national security cost of a prolonged budget lapse.

Deterrence rests on more than missiles, submarines, and strategic doctrine. It also depends on the visible reliability of state capacity. Allies and adversaries alike measure whether the U.S. can sustain operations under pressure, protect its population, and maintain continuity during disruption. A shutdown tells them the opposite. It signals that even absent enemy action; the U.S. is willing to degrade its own readiness through political dysfunction. Even short lapses in appropriations disrupt defense planning, contract execution, and the broader machinery that underwrites operational readiness.

The most immediate damage appears in aviation security. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is not simply a travel inconvenience buffer. It is part of the nation’s daily homeland defense posture. Every checkpoint, screening lane, and visible officer contributes to deterrence by signaling that attacks or probes are likely to be detected and disrupted. That visible consistency matters because deterrence at the tactical level often begins with routine friction imposed on hostile actors.

Friction weakens when the workforce begins to crack. More than 460 TSA officers have already quit during the current standoff, while absentee rates have climbed to 10 to 11 percent nationally. Repeated funding disruptions are damaging morale, retention, and long-term staffing stability across the Department of Homeland Security. That is not merely a workforce problem. It is a deterrence problem.

Fatigue measurably degrades visual search performance, which is directly relevant to screening-intensive environments such as aviation security. TSA screening is not just procedural. It is cognitive work performed under repetitive, high-stakes conditions. When officers are exhausted, financially strained, or distracted by uncertainty, the quality of that work can decline even if the checkpoint remains technically operational.

Equally important, deterrence at the checkpoint depends not only on actual performance but on what potential attackers believe about the system. Airport security screening is perceived as a stronger deterrent when it appears visible, universal, and credible. That matters because deterrence is partly psychological. A security system that appears chaotic, understaffed, and politically neglected may still function, but it no longer projects the same confidence.

This erosion has consequences beyond the checkpoint itself. Long lines spilling into terminal lobbies and pre-screening corridors create soft-target conditions that sophisticated attackers have historically exploited overseas. U.S. airports have warned Congress that the current operational strain is serious, worsening, and potentially long-lasting. In practical terms, a shutdown does not just reduce security throughput. It redistributes risk into large, dense, unsecured public spaces and creates opportunity.

More troubling still is that recurring shutdowns create patterns. Adversaries watch for patterns. If hostile actors can reliably anticipate periods when U.S. aviation security is underpaid, understaffed, and politically distracted, then Washington has unintentionally handed them a calendar of vulnerability. Strategic competitors, transnational terrorist networks, and opportunistic lone actors all benefit when a defender repeatedly broadcasts when its systems are under stress.

The same logic applies beyond airports. Health security is often treated separately from deterrence, but that is a categorical error. In an era defined by pandemics, synthetic biology, fragile supply chains, and the weaponization of disruption, public health capacity is national security capacity. A country that cannot sustain surveillance, biodefense coordination, and health system continuity under fiscal pressure is not demonstrating resilience. It demonstrates exploitable weaknesses.

That is precisely why the shutdown’s impact on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should concern strategists as much as its effect on TSA. HHS’s own FY 2026 contingency staffing plan states that 23,128 employees, roughly 31 percent of its workforce, would be furloughed during a lapse in appropriations. The plan further notes that numerous non-excepted functions would be paused or curtailed, including elements of grant oversight, data collection, validation, analysis, and portions of public communication. That may sound bureaucratic, but it is not.

Health system functions form the connective tissue of national preparedness. Surveillance, analytics, research oversight, and continuity of clinical and administrative operations are what allow the U.S. to detect biological threats early, understand cascading risks, and sustain resilience under stress. Public health emergency management is foundational to biodefense capacity, particularly in areas such as interagency coordination, situational awareness, testing, surveillance, and surge resilience. When those systems are interrupted, the country does not simply lose paperwork, it loses awareness, agility, and recovery capacity.

This point is reinforced by broader preparedness of scholarship. Public health emergency preparedness in the U.S. has long suffered from uneven and declining support, leaving critical state and local response systems more vulnerable to disruption. In deterrence terms, disruptions lower the cost for an adversary seeking to exploit a biological event, amplify public panic, or overload institutional response capacity.

System disruption and deterrence is where budget shutdowns become strategically self-defeating. The U.S. invests heavily in advanced military capability, but periodically undermining the civilian systems that make that capability credible is defeatist. No adversary needs to destroy American resilience if Washington is willing to suspend parts of it on its own. That contradiction sends a damaging signal to both allies and competitors.

For adversaries such as China and Russia, recurring shutdowns offer a useful strategic readout. They reveal domestic political brittleness, weak continuity discipline, and a governing system vulnerable to self-imposed paralysis. That does not automatically invite direct confrontation, but it does encourage gray-zone opportunism. Cyber probing, disinformation, infrastructure stress campaigns, and strategic influence operations all become more attractive when the target appears distracted and internally divided. Shutdowns are self-inflicted wounds. In a deterrence environment, self-inflicted wounds are still wounds.

For U.S. allies, the signal is quieter but equally corrosive. Extended deterrence relies not only on military capability but also in the confidence of American competence and continuity. Partners want to know that the U.S. can manage crises at home while sustaining commitments abroad. A federal government that struggles to keep airport screening and health preparedness stable during a budget fight risk is undermining that confidence at exactly the wrong moment.

For these reasons, shutdowns should no longer be treated as routine political leverage when they affect core homeland security and resilience institutions. Congress should establish automatic continuing resolution mechanisms for agencies and functions that are central to deterrence. This includes transportation security, emergency preparedness, biodefense, and public health surveillance. Political disagreement is unavoidable; however, institutional self-sabotage is not.

Deterrence is often discussed in the language of force posture, strategic messaging, and escalation dominance. This all matters. Yet, deterrence lives in the ordinary machinery of a functioning state: an airport screening lane that stays open, a health surveillance system that keeps collecting data, and a workforce that knows the government will not ask it to defend the nation for free. When that machinery stalls, deterrence does not collapse overnight. It thins. It flickers. It becomes easier to stress. That is the danger of a shutdown. It does not merely interrupt government. It advertises vulnerability.

Brandon Toliver is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views of the author are his own.

Deterrence on Layaway: A Shutdown’s Quiet Assault on American Security was originally published on Global Security Review.

Ideology matters, as I learned from surviving 18 years under the Chavista regime in Venezuela. The United States pretended otherwise for three decades, clinging to the “end of history” and similar dreams. Today, with ideologically driven conflicts simmering around the world, it is time for America to integrate deterrence, defense, and a theory of victory across the so-called gray zone of geopolitics. Doing so will require policymakers to start listening to what America’s enemies have been saying for years about their ideological designs.

In 2004, when questioned about whether a Venezuela-Cuba alliance was exporting communist revolution throughout the Western Hemisphere, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States averred: “It is a thing outdated in time and it is not understanding the relationships that exist between the countries.” That was a backhanded ‘yes,’ if there ever was one. The message was meant to assuage the busy, post-9/11 national security community, diverting attention away from the problems brewing south of the U.S. border. More than two decades later, the annual warnings of USSOUTHCOM Combatant Commanders before Congress have finally been heeded by the White House.

Ideology has been slapping America in the face since the late 1990s. For this era of refocusing on state-based threats, it comes in these forms and many others: Beijing’s obsession with employing “united front” organizations to silence dissidents overseas; Moscow’s obsession with Ukraine, kicking off a murky war in 2014 that is now sustained conventionally; Tehran’s obsession with aiding and abetting proxy martyrs of the Islamic Revolution; Havana’s and Caracas’ shared obsession with waging “asymmetric war” on Western powers (which included flooding the American homeland with illicit narcotics); and Pyongyang’s obsession with subverting Seoul’s political processes and civic life. All these gray-zone efforts have an ideology at the heart. Their ideologies, variously rooted in Marxism, religion, and revanchism, drive the leaders of these states to employ irregular warfare tactics without any remorse and at any cost to civilians in the West or anywhere else. You will not find high degrees of intellectual coherence between these constructs; shared hatreds and collectivist doctrines and dogmas are cohesive enough for what now amounts to an anti-Western coalition.

Anti-Western adversaries became sneakier when strategizing and aligning with those espousing similar worldviews. They also became more convinced of their moral superiority. The U.S. national security community makes arbitrary distinctions between geopolitics and ideology. These distinctions obfuscate reality, which is already tough to comprehend, and lead to poor policymaking. Nowhere is this weakness more prominent than in the domain of irregular warfare. How did ISIS carve out its domain between Iraq and Syria, for instance, if not through the aid of its ideology?

Discussing rival-state ideology in the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security seems to generate discomfort despite some strides to understand strategic cultures. It started with the spectacular triumphs of 1991. After Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the First Gulf War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, international relations’ ideological variables have been marginalized in the Federal Government. The American bureaucrat could finally put ‘Sovietology’ to rest, and, with it, anything to do with alternatives to liberal internationalism. The term ‘Great-Power Competition’ continues the delusion; ‘strategic-ideological struggle’ captures reality much better.

Disclaimer: Ideologies are messy. Their study requires incredible levels of nuance, subtlety, cultural awareness, philosophical skill, and extensive interpretive room. It is not a field of expertise attuned nor prone to engineering solutions or linear responses, making it politically dangerous to confront ideological challengers. Bringing up ideology always risks alienating a group and hurting its feelings. Hence, American political leaders and senior officials have scarcely breathed a word about state-centric ideological conflict since the demise of the USSR.

This problematic approach is a vestige of America’s long-gone “unipolar moment.” Through mirror imaging, it takes our attention away from elements that the Western world’s rivals thrive on. Several foes of the West have developed highly complex irregular warfare doctrines, intelligently focusing on the types of operations that some of these actors can excel in, and backing off from the type of war that they know they cannot win. Because illegality is the common denominator to all irregular warfare activities coming from any type of challenger, ideological zeal and fervor are absolute strategic imperatives to the leaders of these revanchist entities. Indeed, during the Global War on Terror, we recognized it as an essential enemy warfighting capability. Ideology is the glue that authoritarians, totalitarians, and other extremists apply to bind together the domestic constituencies that they rely on for control and aggression. In ideology, those leaders find the corpus of thought and the narratives required to morally justify atrocities committed in pursuit of greed, territorial expansion, or a simple clinging to power.

Acknowledgement is growing that defeating mere symptoms of its rivals’ irregular warfare campaigns cannot bring American strategic victory or even achieve deterrence in the “gray zone.” Looking back at the U.S.-led quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq, more observers have called for defeating root ideologies, rather than just crushing the fighters who currently espouse a certain ideology’s flavor-of-the-moment (e.g., Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, FARC, ELN, etc.).

Defeating our enemies must include defeating their ideologies. This no longer demands global wars in the traditional (conventional) military sense. To defeat regime ideologies, whole-of-government efforts require dusting off forgotten or atrophied competencies that America used to cultivate, including the ‘dark arts’ of U.S. foreign policy. Washington needs to articulate once again what it believes in, beyond vague notions of stability, and bring like-minded allies to our side.

David Guenni is completing his doctorate with Missouri State University’s Graduate School of Defense & Strategic Studies. His research focuses on nation-states’ employment of narcotrafficking as an irregular warfare modality. He is a Venezuelan political asylum seeker in the United States, having spent many years in the struggle against the Chavista regime in Caracas. His opinions are his own and no one else’s.

Why Ideology Matters in Irregular Warfare was originally published on Global Security Review.

Whenever the United States resorts to military force, the same question echoes through Washington and beyond: Did President Trump act within the law? Recent controversies surrounding the War Powers Resolution—especially the requirement to notify Congress—have only intensified that debate. This article steps aside from that familiar battleground. Instead, it asks a more fundamental constitutional question: would an air campaign against Iran be lawful under the United States Constitution? A careful reading suggests that the answer may well be yes.

There are two sections in Article I of the Constitution that address the authority to declare war. Clause 11 of Section 8 grants Congress the power to declare war, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make rules concerning capture on land and water. It is not the only provision that discusses war-making authority.

Clause 3 of Section 10, which is rarely mentioned in war powers discussions, deprives the states of the authority to maintain a standing army or navy, or to engage in war. It is the federal government’s responsibility to provide for the nation’s common defense, with two exceptions. First, Congress may permit states to possess these powers. Second, states may go to war if they are “actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.”

War Powers Act of 1973

Using general legislative authority, as well as power granted to it from Article I, Section 8, Congress passed the War Powers Act in 1973. The Act came after frustration over the Korean War and the bombing campaign over Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

The Act creates several limitations on the President’s abilities to make war and requires: 1) a declaration of war, 2) specific statutory authorization, or 3) a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

“In every possible instance,” the President is required to consult with Congress prior to beginning hostilities and do so within 48 hours. Congressional approval is needed if hostilities are to continue beyond 60 days.

From a prescriptivist perspective, there are compelling arguments that certain provisions of the Act may be unconstitutional. While some argue that Congress cannot delegate its authority to make war, others argue that the Act infringes on the President’s duties as Commander in Chief. Article I, Section 10, creates exceptional circumstances for the exercise of war-making powers. Moreover, there is a strong textual argument that those powers expressly granted to the states inherently apply to the President.

Principles of Presidential War Powers

Using the two clauses of the Constitution referenced above, we can extract two principles regarding war-making authority: Consent of Congress and Imminent Danger.

1. Consent of Congress

Congress can consent in three ways. It can issue a formal declaration of war. It can also pass legislation to create conditions for the use of force. And it can give the Commander in Chief limited flexibility, as they did with the War Powers Act.

Alternatively, Congress can signal passive approval by not responding to the Presidential action at all. This last approach is controversial, but common sense and Supreme Court precedent suggest it is lawful. Moreover, Congress is the only body that can legally correct an unauthorized or undesired war. They can pass laws to restrict war-making authority, end a war, or use their impeachment power. When Congress chooses not to use these options, it is effectively granting passive consent.

2. Imminent Danger Exception

As stated in the preamble to the Constitution, the purpose of creating a constitution is to provide for the common defense of the people, among other goals. While Congress has the Article I power to declare war or legislate how the President can wage war, responsibilities are commingled. The President is the Commander in Chief per Article II, Section 2. One of the implied duties of heading the armed forces is directing them in a defensive attack or addressing imminent danger, which refers to an immediate threat that poses a risk of harm without prompt intervention. This is not a tangential power of the President, but a core constitutional power as well.

It would be ludicrous to suggest that the initial response to the War of 1812 was unauthorized because Congress could not meet to deliberate on a declaration. While it is clearly the primary duty of the federal government to repel invasion, it is also in the purview of the states to act when “actually invaded” or placed in “imminent danger.” The Founding Fathers clearly recognized the need for flexibility in responding to threats, especially in an era when communication delays were the norm. If the states are given such power in exceptional circumstances, certainly the Commander in Chief would have these powers.

What is peculiar is that the flexibility afforded to states is not restricted to times of invasion. An invasion is already an imminent danger. Neither is the exception in Section 10, Clause 3 restricted to actions on the sea for events such as intercepting a flotilla attempting to invade. It is easy to believe the Founders contemplated threats from their immediate borders with France, Britain, and Spain.

If a state had a border along a river, and an enemy nation started concentrating forces on the other bank of the river, one could argue the existence of imminent danger, especially in historic times where standing armies were statements in and of themselves.

How This Applies to Iran

There is clearly some lawful justification for offensive use of force when Congress does not provide express consent. Just War Theory and the preemption doctrine can be discussed all day long until we are blue in the face, without concluding whether the current use of force is theoretically justified. The answer is truly a matter of prudence and congressional will.

Using threats of imminent danger as justification seems to be a stretch in this scenario, particularly because many in positions of authority have hinted the imminence originates with Israel’s decision to carry out strikes and the retaliation that would bring upon American forces within the region.

One can argue that the intent of the imminent danger exception in the Constitution is limited to public defense. The War Powers Act considers imminent danger to military forces. Say that the military came across evidence of a nation trying to repeat a USS Cole-style bombing. Retaliating against that nation or striking first to reduce their capability would be the prudent thing to do, and it would be a lawful use of force under the Constitution alone, regardless of what acts of Congress say.

It is also important to consider the specific moment used to assess whether the actions are lawful. At the start of a conflict, one might not actually be in immediate danger or have given consent. Nevertheless, arguing imminent danger becomes easier in the chaos of war, especially after the first shot is fired.

It is unknown what the actual intelligence is behind the scenes, nor is it known the veracity of public comments by members of the Administration and Congress. Some say it is about nuclear weapon production, preempting retaliation that would stem from Israel’s strikes against Iran, retaliation for the alleged killings of thousands of Iranian civilians, or regime change. Others who are just as authoritative contradict these claims.

While there may be classified intelligence to the contrary, this is a rare instance in which the justification for the strikes has not been communicated to the public. Normally, the public is aware of escalating tensions and seeing the President or other officials give warnings or make demands before we see strikes. On the evening of March 3, 2026, many members of Congress took to social media to discuss their briefing on the conflict. Representatives Seth Magaziner and Stephen Lynch, Senator Richard Blumenthal, among others, indicated that the administration failed to articulate any justification, while most republicans stated support for the strikes.

Just as there is a fog of war, there is a fog of politics. Commentary is often on partisan lines; it is an election year, and members often vote against public statements, and to the chagrin of public opinion. It is also common for members to offer support privately and behind the scenes while publicly posturing against matters. What matters is what Congress does as a body. Congress has not yet revoked the President’s war-making ability. Until they do so, they are at least providing passive consent for the President to use force against Iran. While some may find the prudence of this conflict distasteful, until Congress votes otherwise, the war and that the President’s actions are lawful per the Constitution itself.

Michael Fincher is a Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Is The Air Campaign Against Iran an Illegal Use of Force? was originally published on Global Security Review.

(Editor’s Note: This article was submitted before the U.S.-Iran conflict began. We intentionally left the article as “forward looking” to signify the value of the analysis.) 

After successful US regime-change operations in Venezuela, Washington is aiming for similar endeavor again, this time in Middle East against Iran. Mass mobilization of US military assets—most notably the deployment of naval armada in the Arabia Sea, the forward deployment of Patriot air-defense system and THAAD missile defense systems, and the sudden evacuation of non-essential personnel from regional military bases, were among advanced preparatory measures by Washington for kinetic action against Iran. Amid heightening tension, few incidents preceded US military actions. Iran seized two foreign oil-tankers allegedly smuggling oil and had attempted to approach US flagged tankers. And a US Navy F-35C shot down a Shahed-139 MALE UAV in the Arabian Sea.

Amid growing tensions, hurried to leave the Persian Gulf. The US Department of Transportation Maritime Administration issued guidelines to US flagged commercial ships to keep distance from Iran’s territorial waters and reject Iranian forces permission to board ship.

It is apparent that Trump Administration does not want a prolonged war, rather a quick precise and decisive operation to facilitate regime change. The US Navy was expected to take the lead using carrier-based airpower and cruise-missile strikes from guided missile destroyers (DDGs) and nuclear guided missile attack submarines (SSGNs), followed by bombardment by US Air Force bombers flying from US mainland or from Diego Garcia.

But unlike the Venezuela operation, which was conducted in American backyard, Washington has limited territorial room available for military action against Tehran given limited territorial support by Gulf nations. Therefore, it is likely kinetic operations will be highly dependent on naval forces.

This makes complete sense. At sea, the US enjoys overwhelming technological superiority. The US Navy has an estimated nine warships in the region. Three Independence class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) stationed in the Persian Gulf but of limited value as these vessels have little  offensive capability.

The Most prominent formation is the Carrier Battle Group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), with embarked Carrier Air-Wing Nine (CVW-9). CVW-9 boasts F-35C Lightening-II stealth fighters, F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets attack aircraft, E/A-18G “Growler” electronic warfare jets, E-2D “Hawkeye” Airborne Early Warning Aircraft and MH-60R Sea Hawk Anti-Submarine Warfare helicopters. The Lincoln is accompanied by three Aegis-equipped Arleigh Burke class DDGs – each armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles for offensive missions and an arsenal of air-defense missiles for multi-layer defense.

Two additional Arleigh Burke class DDGs are deployed in Strait of Hormuz. Besides surface combatants, an unknown number of Ohio class SSGNs –equipped with a formidable payload of 154 land attack Tomahawk cruise missiles – are also patrolling in the area.

In theory, this naval armada is an instrument of coercion at sea, capable of projecting power against Iran and establishing local sea-control in the Arabian Sea. The employment of force through the maritime domain against various types of targets including: military targets like air-defense systems, nuclear enrichment facilities, and missile sites; high visibility targets like economic infrastructure; and high value targets like Iran’s political leadership itself, complicate Iran’s defensive measures as US Navy can launch from multiple vectors and over vast oceanic distances.

Any Iranian retaliation will mirror this logic. In a low-level response, Tehran has in the past attempted assertive signaling in the maritime domain, i.e., harassing merchant shipping and conducting naval exercises with Russian and Chinese partners.

A mid-level escalation includes counterstrikes on military assets of US and its allies in the Gulf. Facing an existential threat Iran is attempting maritime escalation, such as closing the Strait of Hormuz. Such a move represents a strategic gamble with global consequences and risks overwhelming US retaliation.

Iran, for its part, understands this asymmetry well. Iranian Navy, with obsolete surface and sub-surface fleet, stands no chance against US Navy in a traditional conflict. However, Iran has structured its naval strategy on sea denial rather than sea control. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGC-N) operates hundreds of fast-attack crafts (FACs) equipped with missiles and rockets for saturated strikes against surface vessels. In addition, hundreds of coastal missiles and suicide drones have been dispersed and concealed along the Iranian coast.

Additionally, Iran has commissioned rudimentary specialized vessels, like Shahid Bagheri, Shahid Roudaki and Shahid Mahdavi, which have the capability to launch swarms of drones and containerized missiles at floating targets. Together, these assets manifest Iran’s asymmetrical warfare strategy in the maritime domain through which it seeks to overcome US defenses through overwhelming numbers.

Geography facilitates Iran’s strategy. The Strait of Hormuz remains Tehran’s most potent political leverage. At its narrowest point between the Omani Musandam Peninsula and Iran, merely 33 kms wide with the shipping lane just 3 kms wide in either direction. Iran’s ability to block this channel using coastal missile batteries, FACs, naval mines, midget submarines, and unmanned systems provide its greatest capability to counter any major aggression.

The US understands this very well. Therefore, instead of venturing in close waters, the US Navy is likely to operate mostly outside the Persian Gulf while relying on Over-The-Horizon (OTH) precision strikes using distance as a buffer.

A blockade of Strait of Hormuz, by Iran will have immediate ramifications at the global scale. Oil tankers carry more than 17 million barrels of oil each day through this strait which accounts for approximately 20% of global net oil consumption.  Saudi Arabia and UAE have alterative pipelines operational which can transit about 2.6 million barrels per day. However, compared to the net volume passing through Start of Hormuz, these pipelines can carry 15.29% at maximum capacity and cannot overcome the economic spillover of any disruption at the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet, for Iran this leverage of Strait of Hormuz is fragile and unsustainable in longer run. Israel’s comprehensive air-campaign against Iranian high value assets and subsequent Operations Epic Fury and Midnight Hammer have already exposed major capability voids in Iranian air-defense capability. The Iranian Air Force is obsolete, and its air-defense systems – including domestic as well as Russian and Chinese systems – are mediocre at best.

Against a well-coordinated multi-domain offense, Iran lacks a credible and workable retaliatory option at its disposal. Yes, a large stockpile of short-range ballistic missiles and drones pose a threat, but again, Israel’s precise targeting of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers during Iran-Israel conflict indicates that US can also undertake a similar campaign at a much greater scale employing far more robust options.

But the central question remains: what is Washington’s endgame with Iran? Can limited air strikes realistically cripple the Iranian political regime or permanently degrade its nuclear ambitions, or are they more likely to reinforce the regime’s ideological narrative and deepen Tehran’s perceived necessity for a nuclear deterrent? There are no clear answers.

Mr. Ahmad Ibrahim is research associate at Maritime Centre of Excellence (MCE), Pakistan Navy War College (PNWC), Lahore. His areas of research include Modern Warfare, Military Technology, Conflict Studies, and Nuclear Strategy. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

CARRIER, CHOKEPOINT, AND COERCION: THE DYNAMICS OF IRAN-US CONFLICT was originally published on Global Security Review.

The Indo-Pacific is entering a far more dangerous strategic era. Military modernization, grey-zone coercion, and rapid nuclear expansion are reshaping the regional balance of power. Most notably, China is undertaking a historic expansion of its nuclear arsenal, investing in silo fields, road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, ballistic missile submarines, and dual-capable systems. Simultaneously, Russia’s willingness to use nuclear threats in Europe demonstrates that nuclear coercion is once again central to great-power competition.

In Washington, proposals such as Ely Ratner’s Pacific Defense Pact reflect recognition that the current security architecture is insufficient. A more formalized collective defense structure in the Indo-Pacific is necessary.

However, this is not sufficient. A conventional Pacific Defense Pact does not fully address the most dangerous level of escalation to large-scale conventional war or nuclear attack. What the region now requires is a narrowly defined Indo-Pacific nuclear alliance.

A Narrow, Explicit Purpose

This would not be a sweeping defense pact covering every maritime incident, border clash, cyber intrusion, or grey-zone coercive act. It would have a clear and carefully delimited purpose. That is to deter large-scale conventional war or nuclear attack against member states.

Its clarity would be its strength. That clarity performs a second vital function. It minimizes the risk of entrapment by ensuring member states are not dragged into escalation over actions below the threshold of war. By explicitly excluding grey-zone coercion and limited crises from its nuclear remit, the alliance would reassure leaders that only truly existential threats trigger its highest-level commitments.

Participation becomes politically sustainable and strategically credible because it avoids automatic escalation over incremental provocations. The alliance would draw a line at catastrophic strategic aggression.

The Historical Record: Why Nuclear Deterrence Matters

The case for a nuclear alliance is not theoretical. It is grounded in historical experience. During the Cold War, nuclear parity between the United States and the Soviet Union prevented direct large-scale war and nuclear attack in Europe. Despite ideological confrontation and proxy conflicts, neither side attempted a conventional war or nuclear attack on the other’s core territories. Nuclear weapons imposed restraint. They deterred not just nuclear use, but overwhelming conventional assault.

Similarly, within NATO, the presence of U.S. nuclear guarantees has prevented full-scale Russian conventional attack on Alliance territory. Moscow has tested boundaries through

hybrid tactics and coercive signaling, but it has not launched a large-scale attack on NATO soil. Nuclear deterrence at the alliance level raised the costs to an unacceptable threshold.

The 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict further illustrates how nuclear capability constrains escalation. The Soviet Union’s nuclear superiority allowed it to signal credible threats, while China’s emerging nuclear capability and mobilization signaled resolve. Mutual fear of escalation compelled negotiation, including intervention through U.S. triangular diplomacy. Nuclear weapons shaped behaviors without being used.

The India–Pakistan experience is equally instructive. Prior to overt nuclearization, the two states fought multiple full-scale wars. Since their nuclear tests in 1998, crises have erupted, but they have remained limited. Missile strikes, cross-border skirmishes, and periods of great tension have not escalated into all-out conventional war or nuclear attack. Nuclear deterrence imposed a ceiling on the conflicts.

Contrast this with the Russia–Ukraine war. Ukraine relinquished its nuclear arsenal in the 1990s and now confronts a nuclear-armed Russia without possessing its own nuclear deterrent. The result has been a prolonged and costly conventional war of attrition. The absence of mutual nuclear deterrence has made sustained large-scale conventional war possible. By comparison, Russia has not launched a direct assault on NATO territory precisely because nuclear deterrence underwrites NATO’s collective defense.

The pattern is clear. Where credible nuclear deterrence exists between adversaries, large-scale conventional war and nuclear attack is sharply constrained or avoided. Where it does not, prolonged and devastating large-scale conventional war and nuclear attack becomes more likely.

The Indo-Pacific Strategic Gap

The Indo-Pacific currently relies on a patchwork of bilateral extended deterrence arrangements centered primarily on Washington. These remain essential, but they are increasingly strained or at risk of being fractured by China.

China’s expanding nuclear arsenal complicates escalation management. A larger and more survivable force reduces the credibility of assumptions that escalation will remain controlled or asymmetrical. Meanwhile, the region contains multiple flashpoints, including Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, and the India–China border where conventional conflict could rapidly climb the escalation ladder.

Frameworks like AUKUS and the Quad strengthen capabilities and coordination, while the proposed Pacific Defense Pact aims to guarantee that the U.S. and its allies can act in concert during crises or conflicts. But they are not structured as nuclear deterrence mechanisms. They do not institutionalize shared nuclear declaratory policy, crisis consultation at the strategic level, or joint planning for high-end escalation management. A nuclear alliance would fill that gap.

Beyond a Pacific Defense Pact

A Pacific Defense Pact, as envisioned in conventional terms, strengthens interoperability and signals unity. But without an explicit nuclear dimension, it leaves ambiguity at the highest rung of escalation. That ambiguity can invite miscalculation.

A nuclear alliance would not broaden commitments; it would sharpen them. It would: (1) establish shared declaratory policy on deterrence of large-scale war and nuclear attack, (2) institutionalize strategic consultation mechanisms during crises, (3) coordinate planning to ensure credible escalation management, and (4) reinforce extended deterrence while discouraging independent nuclear proliferation.

Importantly, such an alliance need not require additional states to acquire nuclear weapons. Like NATO, it could rely on extended deterrence commitments and nuclear-sharing with structured burden-sharing and planning arrangements. Nuclear forces may remain nationally controlled, but alliance cohesion amplifies deterrent credibility. 

Clarity as Stability

The objective is not confrontation. It is clarity. By defining a narrow and explicit threshold—large-scale conventional war or nuclear attack—the alliance reduces the risk of catastrophic miscalculation. It signals to potential aggressors that existential aggression will trigger unified strategic consequences.

Simultaneously, it reassures members that lower-level competition will not automatically escalate to nuclear commitments. This dual clarity strengthens deterrence at the top end and stabilizes politics at the lower end.

A Necessary Evolution

The Indo-Pacific is now the central arena of 21st-century strategic competition. Nuclear modernization is accelerating. Multi-nuclear dynamics are emerging. Escalation timelines are compressing.

History shows that nuclear weapons, and when embedded within credible alliance structures, deter catastrophic war. They prevent large-scale conventional war and nuclear attacks not because they are desirable tools of war, but because they impose unacceptable costs on those who contemplate it.

A Pacific Defense Pact is a step forward, but in the current strategic environment, it is not enough. To deter large-scale conventional war and nuclear attack in the Indo-Pacific, the region must move beyond a Pacific Defense Pact. It must build a nuclear alliance.

Natalie Treloar is the Australian Company Director of Alpha-India Consultancy, a Senior Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Studies Center (IPSC), a Senior Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies (NIDS), and a member of the Open Nuclear Network. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Beyond a Pacific Defense Pact: Why the Indo-Pacific Requires a Nuclear Alliance was originally published on Global Security Review.

In his speech before the United Nations General Assembly on 8 December 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower proposed – in paraphrased terms- that the atom bomb be given to those who can “strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.” Commonly referred to as the ‘Atoms for Peace’ speech, Eisenhower’s words launched an International Atomic Energy Agency and a generation of research into nuclear energy. Since the Cold War’s end, America’s relationship with nuclear power has attracted less attention, but the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is forcing the United States to take a “new look” at its power grid.

Throughout 2025, senators, think tanks, and federal commissions likened the pursuit of better AI to the Manhattan Project that built the bomb. The vast sums of energy required to fuel such a task, however, may need its own project. Although President Donald Trump issued an executive order to reinvigorate the nuclear industrial base last May, these energy demands have been overshadowed by mounting fascination with the need to win a technology race with China. Considering U.S. public opinion toward atomic energy reached a near record high last year, there is no better time to expand the atom’s role in support of a coherent AI strategy.

The Dawn of a Nuclear Renaissance

During the early Cold War, nuclear technology drove a revolution in energy generation, powering everything from American cities to aircraft carriers. The skyrocketing number of AI data facilities in the United States, on the other hand, represents a potential crisis in energy consumption. When asked if the country can support the growing demands of its data centers, former President of Energy at Microsoft Brian Janous responded: “No. Utilities have not experienced a period of load growth in almost two decades and are not prepared for—or even capable of matching—the speed at which AI technology is developing.” The White House is exploring nuclear options to meet this challenge, yet its AI strategy released last July only mentions nuclear power briefly on page sixteen. This point deserves more attention.

America’s 94 reactors currently supply twenty percent of its energy with 97 gigawatts (GW), and the largest of them—located in Georgia—has a generating capacity of 4.5 GW. A recent Goldman Sachs report projected that the United States needs 47 GW of additional energy to power its AI centers through 2030—the equivalent of half the country’s nuclear capacity. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken notice. In January, he secured a series of nuclear energy deals to power his 6.6 GW AI compound under development in Ohio. Companies that did not exist twenty years ago, such as Meta and OpenAI, could soon demand more than ten percent of the nation’s power grid, and the needs are only increasing.

Professor Joohyun Moon of Dankook University suggested recently that small modular reactors (SMRs)—automobile-sized nuclear batteries—could offer energy solutions for national security purposes in forward areas, such as the Indo-Pacific. Although the United States approved its first SMR design in 2022, it will not be operational until 2029, and only three SMRs are currently active in Japan, China, and Russia. Some studies cast doubt on the affordability of SMRs and question whether they would increase the risk of proliferation given the enriched uranium they need to operate. Moreover, these reactors only generate up to 300 megawatts, so while they could be useful in certain military contingencies, their output pales in comparison to the forecasted energy demands of AI.

Microsoft alone plans to build at least six data centers in Texas, each of which might consume enough energy to power more than 100,000 homes. Once Meta completes its Ohio facilities, it will have at its disposal energy reserves capable of powering roughly five million homes. Data centers in the United States could therefore devour nearly one quarter of the energy used by all American households before 2030. Without tighter integration between a national AI strategy and America’s nuclear sector, these numbers appear unsustainable.

Reversing the Ship

Going all in on nuclear energy also requires sustainable solutions to disposing of spent nuclear fuel and investing in high-capacity pressurized water reactors, but such solutions have not been forthcoming. President Barack Obama’s administration slashed funding for Nevada’s Yucca Mountain disposal facility in 2009 and suspended development of a nuclear waste repository there. Despite the first Trump administration’s requests to fund the disposal program between 2018 and 2020, Congress has yet to approve a plan. Any rapid increase in nuclear energy must be accompanied by a commensurate spike in disposal capacity.

In addition to these concerns, the United States closed thirteen reactors between 2013 and 2022, which has encouraged the current administration to reverse course. Last year, the Department of Energy pledged to quadruple America’s nuclear output from 100 GW to 400 GW by 2050. President Trump also issued an executive order to unburden AI companies of federal regulations and requested that they shoulder the burden of energy costs. The next step is to fuse these developments with a theory of success that explains what “winning” the AI race looks like and then align that vision with the energy requirements needed to support it—much of which will be nuclear.

The Long Shadow of 1945

In her historical account of U.S. citizenship during the early atomic age, Sarah Robey explains how “American culture has never truly partitioned the difference between ‘atoms for peace’ and ‘atoms for war.’” Over the last eighty years, these blurred lines generated both hyperbolic and apathetic responses to the nation’s relationship with nuclear power. The atom became equal parts provider and destroyer, but these conversations disappeared once public fears of a Cold War going hot subsided. With American optimism toward nuclear energy now sitting at 61 percent, there is no better time to reignite the discussion about the atom’s role in American society.

Despite the Trump administrations’ efforts to break ground on new nuclear plants over the last ten years, AI theory has outpaced the long-term realities of AI application, especially regarding the energy equation. Advancing AI research will force western societies to embrace the atom for the purpose of sustaining life rather than destroying it much as Eisenhower theorized in 1953. Accepting this reality by establishing deeper connections between energy generation and AI strategy is the first step toward finding sustainable solutions to AI’s role in war and peace.

MAJ Michael P. Ferguson, U.S. Army, is an instructor in the Department of History and War Studies at the United States Military Academy and a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Specializing in early Cold War history and nuclear strategy, he has published several dozen articles and columns on a wide range of topics. His latest research appeared in the International Journal of Military History and Historiography and Texas National Security Review. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the policies or position of the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of War, or the U.S. Government.

Learning to Love the Atom Again: Why the Future of Artificial Intelligence is Nuclear was originally published on Global Security Review.

The Narva River separates Narva from the Russian city of Ivangorod, where a historic Swedish castle faces a Russian fortress built by Ivan III in 1492. Walking through the streets of Narva, one might easily believe they were in Russia, were it not for the Estonian street signs breaking the facade. Here, many Russian residents from the Soviet era, known as “grey passport” holders, still live without Estonian citizenship. Efforts to remove Soviet monuments have fueled anger amongst the local population in what remains an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking area.

Many in the Riigikogu (Estonia’s parliamentary body) view efforts to remove monuments across the country as a way of moving on from painful symbols of oppression. Tens of thousands of Estonians were imprisoned or deported to Siberia during the Soviet occupation, many of whom died in captivity. Many community members of Russian descent consider this to be an unnecessary cleansing of history, especially concerning monuments dedicated to Soviet soldiers killed in the “Great Patriotic War” of WWII.

A Soviet T-34 tank that stood in honor of fallen Soviet casualties was controversially removed in August of 2022. The monument, which stood against the banks of the Narva River, was left covered in flowers by residents and eventually relocated to the Estonian War Museum. I was in Narva during the months leading up to the removal of the tank and heard the Russian perspective firsthand from the people I lived with. This, however, was not the first-time parts of Estonia had struggled with identity issues.

Riots swept through the capital city of Tallinn in 2007 over the relocation of a Soviet monument known as the Bronze Soldier. Now known as Bronze Night, the unrest led to over 100 injuries and the deadly stabbing of an ethnic Russian, as well as Russian cyberattacks that brought Estonian government, banking, and news sites offline.

Events like these placed Estonia directly in the Kremlin’s sights, where it has remained ever since. While I was living in Narva in the summer of 2022, Putin remarked that Narva, Estonia’s third-largest city, was historically Russian and “would need to be ‘taken back’.” These comments drew immediate ire from many politicians, but more importantly, they preceded a series of provocations by the Kremlin against Estonian sovereignty that intensified through 2025.

On an early morning in May 2024, nearly half of Russia’s buoys marking the border in the Narva River disappeared after their unexpected removal by Russian border guards. Estonian officials and media interpreted this as a threat against their statehood. This incident led to an increase in accidental border crossings by fishermen in the Narva River, particularly in sections where buoys had been removed. Later, on December 17th, 2025, Russian border guards themselves crossed the border near Narva, perhaps accidentally. Moreover, Russian aircraft breached Estonian airspace for 12 minutes in September 2025, prompting NATO to quickly scramble aircraft in response. This was consistent with the common Russian tactic of testing NATO’s response times and military capabilities while also making a strong statement toward their adversaries. Earlier in the same month, Estonia’s Baltic neighbor, Latvia, reported that a Russian military drone had crash-landed in Latvian territory.

If a pattern of recurrent airspace violations is not enough, Russia has adopted a new tactic of unorthodox warfare by using shipping vessels to cut internet cables in the Baltic Sea. These incidents made headlines around the world and have continued to plague EU and NATO officials to this day. As recently as December 31st, 2025, a vessel was seized by the Finnish Border Guard after dragging its anchor across the Baltic seafloor, cutting a cable between Helsinki and Tallinn.

It is unsurprising that Putin has held a special grudge against Estonia, considering the nation’s unwavering support for Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion. Adjusted for GDP, Estonia has been among the most dedicated providers of military aid to Ukraine. The country has also handled many refugees, some of whom, by my own experience, include military-aged males fleeing the war. These refugees have been somewhat successfully encouraged to assimilate into host communities and learn the Estonian language.

After multiple tumultuous years in a row, Narva highlights the contrast in opinion between ethnic Estonians and many of their fellow ethnic Russian citizens. On the banks of the Narva River, the celebrations of Victory Day on May 9th set the stage for one of the more bizarre scenes of 2025. A Russian holiday celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 drew crowds on both sides of the river for the third straight year.

Supportive cheers erupted from many in Narva’s crowd during the celebrations in Ivangorod across the river, despite a massive banner protesting Putin hanging in the background on the walls of Narva Castle. Estonia may not support Putin, but feelings of identity in this Russian-speaking city are undeniably complicated. Just months after Narva residents gathered on the riverbank to celebrate with their neighbors across the border, Estonia began work on concrete defensive bunkers near the Russian border in December 2025, as part of the planned Baltic Defense Line to prepare for armed conflict.

Given Estonia’s cultural divide, which benefits Kremlin propaganda, it is vital the EU and Tallinn prevent Russian claims of marginalization from gaining credibility. Policies phasing out Russian-language schools have strained relations in Narva, but Estonia’s efforts to protect its heritage are legitimate. To enhance social cohesion and ensure security and human rights, Estonia should invest in inclusive initiatives that value Russian communities, recognizing that descendants of Soviet-era immigrants are not responsible for Estonia’s colonization.

After the American Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant took steps to address past wrongs but recognized that former Confederate states must rejoin American democracy for lasting peace. Estonia has made significant efforts to redress past injustices by gaining independence. The new generation of Russians must assimilate, but more initiatives are needed. The Kremlin has used the situation to foster a narrative of marginalization, resonating with frustrated Russian Estonians. The government must reconcile with young Russian speakers to ensure peace, sovereignty, and stability for Estonia.

Chris Sproesser is a student at the University of South Carolina’s McCausland College of Arts and Sciences, focusing on economics and Russian studies. He has previously been published by The Yale Review of International Studies. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

An Identity Crisis in Europe’s Russian Frontier was originally published on Global Security Review.

The methods of modern economic espionage are a complex mix of traditional human intelligence operations and cutting-edge cyber techniques. Foreign intelligence services, often with government support, actively seek to illicitly acquire sensitive information from key industries, including advanced computing, pharmaceutical, aerospace, and energy.

Traditional methods include recruiting corporate insiders who, through financial incentives, ideological persuasion, or blackmail, gain access to a company’s most sensitive data. These operations may also involve physical infiltration of a company’s facilities, such as placing an agent in a surreptitious role within the supply chain to obtain proprietary information. On the cyber front, the threat is even more pervasive. Adversaries employ sophisticated spear-phishing attacks to access corporate networks, deploy advanced malware to exfiltrate data covertly, and conduct supply-chain attacks that compromise software or hardware during manufacturing. This combination of physical and digital tradecraft allows foreign intelligence services to bypass traditional security measures and access vital research and development data, manufacturing processes, and business strategies at a fraction of the time and cost it would usually take to develop them organically.

In this context, the role of counterintelligence in managing and executing insider threat mitigation programs is a critical element of national security in the burgeoning era of global great-power competition. These programs move beyond simple security protocols to adopt a holistic, risk-based approach to deterring, detecting, and mitigating threats posed by a company’s employees. Rather than focusing solely on a small number of spies, modern programs are designed to identify individuals on a “critical pathway” to becoming a threat by using both technical indicators (e.g., unusual data downloads, anomalous network activity) and non-technical, behavioral cues (e.g., unexplained affluence, foreign connections, or indicators of personal stress). The goal is to intervene early, assisting at-risk employees before a foreign intelligence service can exploit their vulnerabilities. This proactive stance is essential because, in an environment where state-sponsored actors relentlessly target a nation’s innovation base, the greatest risk often comes from within.

A robust insider threat program serves as the first line of defense against the human element of foreign espionage, thereby preserving a company’s competitive edge and, by extension, a nation’s technological superiority.

To counter this multifaceted threat effectively, a robust public–private partnership is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Government counterintelligence agencies possess unique authorities and global visibility that enable them to identify the motives, capabilities, and tactics of foreign intelligence services. Yet most sensitive intellectual property resides in the private sector, which lacks the legal mandate, resources, and authority to conduct proactive counterintelligence operations. This asymmetry creates a critical national vulnerability. An effective public–private partnership seeks to close this gap by enabling the secure, timely sharing of threat intelligence from government agencies to at-risk corporate firms. Collaborative successes have included joint task forces and intelligence-sharing portals that provide companies with actionable warnings about specific foreign threats.

Despite these actions, significant challenges remain. Legal and ethical constraints, particularly those related to privacy protections and the handling of classified information, often impede intelligence flows. Firms may also hesitate to report breaches due to concerns over reputational harm, investor confidence, and legal liability. Compounding these issues, the speed and scale of cyber-enabled espionage frequently outpace the bureaucratic processes governing efficient and practical cooperation. Addressing these gaps requires a unified national strategy that streamlines information-sharing mechanisms, clarifies legal authorities, and directly confronts insider threats and commercial espionage to mitigate their economic and national security consequences.

The protection of economic and corporate interests has become a core mission of modern counterintelligence. The convergence of traditional espionage and cyber operations has produced a complex threat environment that state security services cannot confront alone. As a result, the future of national security and economic prosperity hinges on resilient public–private collaboration, particularly through the implementation of robust insider-threat mitigation programs. By fostering trust, establishing clear and reliable communication channels, and adopting a unified national strategy, governments and industry together can build the defenses necessary to protect innovation, preserve strategic advantage, and sustain long-term economic competitiveness in an increasingly contested global environment.

Joshua Thibert is a Contributing Senior Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies (NIDS) with over 30 years of comprehensive expertise, his background encompasses roles as a former counterintelligence special agent within the Department of Defense and as a practitioner in compliance, security, and insider risk management in the private sector. His extensive academic and practitioner experience spans strategic intelligence, multiple domains within defense and strategic studies, and critical infrastructure protection. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

The Role of Counterintelligence in Protecting Economic and Corporate Interests was originally published on Global Security Review.

According to Reuters, the first point calls for “Ukraine’s sovereignty to be reconfirmed.” It does this by partitioning a sovereign state victimized by unprovoked aggression. Equally odd is the fact that the agreement would be signed by a regime in Moscow that does not recognize Ukraine as a sovereign state.

The second point suggests, “There will be a total and complete comprehensive non-aggression agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Europe.” However, such agreements were in force in 2014 when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his first invasion of Ukraine.

In 1994, Russia pledged to “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.” In 1997, Russia signed a treaty with Ukraine pledging “mutual respect, sovereign equality, territorial integrity, the inviolability of borders, the peaceful settlement of disputes, [and] the non-use of force or threat of force.” Russia violated all of these pledges.

The third point suggests “There will be the expectation that Russia will not invade its neighbors, and NATO will not expand further.” In addition to the 1994 and 1997 agreements, the United Nations Charter and Helsinki Final Act include the “expectation” that Russia does not invade its neighbors. Russia currently occupies parts of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) embraces an open-door policy. Any external limitation on this policy impinges upon NATO’s independence, encroaches on the sovereignty of 32 member-states, sentences NATO aspirants to Russian vassalage, and serves as a green light to further Russian aggression.

Putin and his defenders believe Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 because Ukraine wanted to join NATO, but they have it precisely backwards; Ukraine wanted to join NATO because Putin invaded in 2014. Sovereign nations seek NATO membership because they distrust Moscow and view NATO as the surest route to security in Europe.

The fourth point stipulates, “A dialogue between Russia and NATO, moderated by the United States, will convene to address all security concerns and create a de-escalatory environment.” The US is a founding member of NATO—not a disinterested third party. To suggest the US could be a moderator between NATO’s chief adversary and NATO’s members is to undermine NATO’s unity.

The fifth point states, “Ukraine will receive robust security guarantees.” The guarantees are not robust by any reasonable definition of the term. They are limited and conditional.

To make matters worse, point six stipulates that, “The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be capped at 600,000.” This undermines Ukraine’s sovereignty. Given Russia’s size, capabilities, actions, and aims, agreeing to this would jeopardize Ukraine’s future security.

The seventh point requires that “Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to pass in its bylaws not to accept Ukraine at any point in the future.” Not only did Putin make these demands before his 2022 assault on Ukraine, but it is now known that this 28-point plan is based on Russian proposals.

The eighth point guarantees that “NATO agrees not to station any troops in Ukraine.” This obliterates the notion of robust security guarantees and would leave Ukraine exposed to further Russian aggression. NATO members, if not NATO itself, will need to play a role in postwar Ukraine’s security.

The ninth point states that “European fighter-jets will be stationed in Poland.”
The use of “European” here, rather than “NATO,” raises further questions about the transatlantic bond, which has ensured deterrence in Europe since NATO’s founding. Are we to infer that US fighter-jets will not be stationed in Poland? They are there now on a rotational basis.

The tenth point states that American security guarantees are forfeit “if Ukraine invades Russia” or “fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg.” This is gratuitous. Ukraine did not invade Russia in 2014 or 2022. Ukraine’s incursions and missile-strikes in Russia are a response to Russian aggression.

The thirteenth point states that Russia will be “re-integrated into the global economy” and “invited back into the G8.” Russia was expelled from the G8 because it invaded Ukraine in 2014. It is important to remember that the G7 was founded as a club of wealthy, industrialized, free-market democracies. Yeltsin’s Russia was none of those when it was invited into the G7 in 1998. Putin’s Russia is none of those today.

The fifteenth point says, “A joint US-Russian security taskforce will be established to promote and enforce compliance with all of the provisions of this agreement.” Elevating Russia to the status of American security partner ignores the fact that Russia is the main threat to the security of Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Sidelining NATO from any role in postwar security shows a disregard for the transatlantic community, for NATO’s capabilities in peacekeeping operations, and for NATO’s postwar planning.

The drafters of the 28-point plan are oblivious of the fact that NATO has an entire command focused on security assistance and training for Ukraine and that the British army developed plans to lead a multinational force in Ukraine. Are they opposed to NATO playing those roles?

The seventeenth point stipulates that “The United States and Russia will agree to extend nuclear non-proliferation control treaties, including the START I Treaty. This is fine in theory, but Russia is in violation of numerous arms-control treaties that served as the foundation of post-Cold War stability and security in Europe.

The eighteenth point is particularly troublesome for Ukraine. It requires, “Ukraine agrees to be a non-nuclear state.” In 1994, Ukraine surrendered its entire nuclear arsenal in exchange for Russia’s commitment to respect Ukraine’s “sovereignty” and “existing borders.” The free world’s failure to back up those words after Putin’s 2014 invasion not only set the stage for 2022, it crippled the cause of nuclear nonproliferation.

Russia’s war on Ukraine serves as an object lesson of the deterrent power of nuclear weapons—and the danger of not having them. Ukraine, South Korea, Poland, and others are pondering that lesson.

The twentieth point calls on Ukraine and Russia to “commit to education programs in schools and throughout their society that promote the understanding and tolerance of different cultures” and for “all Nazi ideology…renounced and forbidden.” Of course, Putin has pushed the lie that Ukraine is “not a real country,” that Ukraine was “entirely created by Russia,” and that Ukraine is governed by “a gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.” The irony about “Nazi ideology” is that by concocting phantom enemies, rewriting history, trying to rebuild a dead empire, and waging aggressive war, Putin is the one who is imitating the Nazis.

The twenty-first point recognizes Russian control over the territories it currently occupies; requires Ukrainian forces to withdraw from their own territory, which “they currently control;” and calls for that territory to be turned into a “demilitarized buffer zone.”

The twenty-second point calls on Russia and Ukraine “not to change these arrangements by force.” Force is the only language Putin understands. He has employed military force in Ukraine and Georgia and is probing NATO with drone attacks and sabotage operations.

The twenty-third point stipulates that “Russia shall not obstruct Ukraine’s use of the Dnieper River.” This underscores the perverse nature of this document. Russia should have no role, no say, and no ability to obstruct Ukraine’s use of the hundreds of miles of the Dnieper River that run through the heart of Ukraine.

The twenty-fourth point establishes “a humanitarian committee” to deal with issues related to prisoners, hostages, and “family reunification.” Such initiatives are only necessary because Russia abducted Ukrainian children; imprisoned Ukrainian civilians in “filtration camps;” and forcibly transferred thousands of Ukrainians to Russia.

Point twenty-five demands that Ukraine hold elections within 100 days. This echoes Putin’s talking points. The only way Ukraine and its NATO partners should agree to this is if Russia also holds OSCE-monitored elections within 100 days.

The twenty-sixth point declares that “All parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for wartime actions.” This is another bonus for bad behavior. There would be no need for amnesty were it not for Putin’s war crimes.

The first of these crimes is the very way the war started; the 2014 assault on Crimea and the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine constitute a war of aggression. However, that was only the beginning of Putin’s war crimes, which include targeting hospitals, population centers, and energy, food, and water supplies; destroying schools and places of worship; torturing and massacring civilians; and conducting a campaign of sexual violence.

Point twenty-seven declares the agreement will be “monitored and guaranteed by a Board of Peace, chaired by President Donald J. Trump.” The president of the United States has plenty of responsibilities to occupy his attention. Proconsul of postwar Ukraine should not be added to that list.

Finally, point twenty-eight calls for a ceasefire once the parties agree to the plan. The good news is that the plan presented by Washington is a dead letter. The better news is that European leaders used it as a starting point for a peace initiative that focuses on Ukraine’s sovereignty, Europe’s security, and NATO’s unity. Let’s hope a US-Europe compromise plan will emerge that brings Ukraine a step closer to an endpoint all people of goodwill can agree on, a sovereign and secure Ukraine in a stable and peaceful Europe.

Alan Dowd is director of the Sagamore Institute Center for America’s Purpose.  Views expressed are his own. 

Points, Counterpoints, and Starting Points was originally published on Global Security Review.

Why Trust and Continuity Matter

Recent trust surveys show that public confidence in both government and business has declined, with many people believing institutional leaders are not honest with them. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, for example, highlights a “crisis of grievance,” in which large segments of the population feel left behind and are more inclined to distrust complex policy and technology initiatives.[2]​

This erosion of trust is particularly dangerous at a time when artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and advanced biotechnologies are central to economic and military competition. A report submitted to Congress by U.S.–China policy experts emphasizes that both countries now treat these technologies as strategic industries, tying them directly to national power and long-term security.[4]​

Building Durable Relationships with Legislators

For technology companies, increasing national trust starts with treating Congress as a long‑term strategic partner, not simply as an annual budget gatekeeper.[4]​

• Institutionalize bipartisan technology engagement: Firms can create recurring, nonpartisan briefings and workshops with relevant committees to explain how artificial intelligence (AI), quantum, cyber, and bio tools affect national resilience, economic competitiveness, and workforce opportunity. By engaging members and staff from both parties, companies reduce the perception that emerging technologies are aligned with a single political faction.[5]​
• Lead with ethics, safety, and security: Research on public attitudes toward AI suggests people are more supportive when they see clear safeguards, transparency, and accountability mechanisms within the tech industry. Companies can build trust by proactively presenting their AI safety frameworks, data-protection policies, and supply‑chain security measures, aligning them with federal guidance and international norms on responsible technology use.[6]​

Securing Sustained Funding for Critical Technology

Trust is reinforced when technology programs are clearly tied to enduring strategic missions and supported through stable, multi‑year funding rather than fragile pilots.[5]​

• Connect capabilities to mission portfolios: Instead of scattered line items, technology programs can be organized into mission‑driven portfolios—such as quantum‑resilient communications, AI‑enabled national preparedness, or biosecurity infrastructure—that span research, prototyping, and deployment over several years. Multi‑year authorizations and appropriations make it harder for any single administration to abruptly cancel essential capabilities.[4]​
• Use innovation tools that protect both government and industry: Policy analyses highlight the value of mechanisms like Other Transaction Authority and structured public‑private partnerships to bring nontraditional vendors into national security and infrastructure work more quickly. By pairing these tools with clearer intellectual property protections and streamlined oversight, legislators can encourage top-tier tech firms to stay engaged in sensitive missions over the long term.[8]​

Embedding Technology in Law, Not Just Budgets

To prevent critical technologies from being swapped out with each political shift, their roles must be written into statute and tied to democratic oversight.[9]​

• Statutory roles for key technologies: Laws governing defense planning, critical infrastructure, and economic security should explicitly call for the use of AI, secure digital infrastructure, and advanced analytics in defined mission areas, such as threat detection, disaster response, and supply‑chain monitoring. Once these roles are codified, dismantling them requires visible legislative action rather than quiet executive changes.[9]​
• Multi-stakeholder governance in legislation: Legislated advisory councils and oversight boards that include government, industry, academia, and civil society should supervise high-impact technologies and publish regular reports. This structure signals that powerful tools are subject to ongoing, pluralistic scrutiny rather than being controlled solely by political appointees or corporate executives.[10]​

Quantum Networking Testbed Infrastructure

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) put forth by Congress each year does not typically use a single, generic phrase like “quantum networking testbeds” in isolation; instead, it authorizes and directs specific programs and experiments that collectively constitute quantum networking testbed infrastructure. Several provisions and related authoritative documents are especially relevant to the future of quantum technology growth.

A Senate Armed Services Committee fact sheet on the fiscal year 2024 NDAA highlights language that “authorizes increased funding for a distributed quantum networking testbed” and the development of a next-generation ion‑trap quantum computer at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). While the fact sheet summarizes rather than reproduces the statutory text, it makes clear that Congress explicitly authorized a distributed quantum networking testbed as part of the defense Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) portfolio.[12]​

Within the fiscal year 2025 NDAA, Congress, “authorizes funding to create a ‘quantum communications corridor’ as part of Navy research, development, test, and evaluation.” This is an explicit description of support for a testbed or network to advance quantum communication research so the Navy and the Department of Defense (DoD) can securely transmit information resistant to quantum computer decryption.[15]​

Other recent NDAA cycles also include broader direction that reinforces these testbed authorizations, such as requirements for DoD to establish pilot programs for promising quantum computing capabilities and to identify near‑term use cases that can be fielded within two years. These provisions do not always use the word “testbed” in the operative clause, but they direct the department to stand up experimental infrastructure and pilots that, in practice, operate as quantum networking and computing testbeds for defense applications.[16]​

In parallel, the National Quantum Initiative framework and associated Department of Energy (DOE) efforts describe quantum networking testbeds as shared infrastructure for entanglement distribution and quantum communications, and Congressional action has repeatedly referenced these federal testbeds and network efforts as part of the broader quantum information science ecosystem that the DoD can leverage.[13]​

Ensuring key technologies not only protect the nation but are also provided with substantial investment and economic promise is a necessity for companies to further their developmental efforts. Demonstrating that quantum technologies are viable for multiple applications—within internal defense and external partnerships—is one possible solution as tech companies become increasingly concerned with the long-term payoff of their test bed programs. For now, defense authorization bills appear to be the most forward leaning avenue supported by government, but the long-term stability of this method has yet to be validated.

How This Approach Builds Public Trust

When the tech industry engages both parties and chambers in Congress, supports multi-year statutory programs, and accepts meaningful oversight, it demonstrates that emerging technologies are being developed within a framework of law, ethics, and long-term national interest. In such a system, citizens can see that AI, quantum computing, and other advanced capabilities are not partisan experiments or purely profit-driven ventures, but part of a durable national strategy subject to democratic control.[2]​

The tech sector can both strengthen U.S. strategic competitiveness and contribute tangibly to rebuilding public trust in government by positioning itself as a co-steward of national resilience, helping design governance mechanisms, committing to transparency, and working with legislators to hard‑wire critical technologies into law and funding.[5]​

Sources:

1. https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer
2. https://cooleypubco.com/2025/02/11/2025-edelman-trust-barometer-grievance/
3. https://www.edelman.com/news-awards/2025-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-high-level-grievance
4. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/Chapter_3–U.S.-China_Competition_in_Emerging_Technologies.pdf
5. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/2024_Annual_Report_to_Congress.pdf
6. https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2025-01/Global%20Top%2010%202025%20Trust%20Barometer.pdf
7. https://www.nationalsecurity.ai/chapter/executive-summary
8. https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1558121/download-documents?artifactId=z4DLuAiI8FBq5qxTCRlq-VPk-yx0lU4p_Mou2oSkOWL2OdIfZr8DAG4
9. https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/white-house-releases-2025-national-7517228/
10. https://www.biotech.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/NSCEB-Full-Report-%E2%80%93-Digital-%E2%80%934.28.pdf
11. https://www.imd.org/ibyimd/audio-articles/restoring-faith-in-leadership-in-the-age-of-grievance/
12. https://defensescoop.com/2024/01/08/ndaa-2024-quantum-provisions/
13. https://www.quantum.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/NQIA2018-NDAA2022-CHIPS2022.pdf
14. https://www.quantum.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/NQI-Annual-Report-FY2025.pdf
15. https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/publications/insights/fy2025ndaa
16. https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2024/12/fy2025-ndaa-angles-enhance-dods-ai-and-quantum-sciences-capabilities/401545/

Beyond the Next Administration: Building Enduring Tech–Government Alliances for National Power was originally published on Global Security Review.

Physicists and engineers now realize that just as most car crashes stem from driver error rather than mechanical failure, the same logic applies to nuclear weapons, their platforms, and their potential use. Whether Americans like it or not, humans are in the system and humans are, almost certainly, the weakest link.

Humans are the weakest component in the quantification of margins and uncertainty (QMU) sense. Engineers often test individual components and larger systems of nuclear weapons to a 1-in-1,000 certainty that they will function correctly. There has long been a view that nuclear weapons should always detonate when employed and never when they are not. To achieve this “always/never” goal, systems are engineered to perfection while largely ignoring sources of human error.

Humans design and manufacture the components, assemble the weapons, complete the wiring, and install systems onto delivery platforms (i.e., subs, silos, and bombers). Humans verify satellite signals of potential attacks from US Strategic Command, communicate those findings to the President, and, depending on the response, draft and transmit emergency action messages (EAMs). This is a gross simplification because fragile humans play a much larger role, but it illustrates the embeddedness of the human element in the system.

One example of human fragility that took place in September 2023 at the Pantex Plant is instructive. It appears a worker mistakenly cross-connected color-coded electrical wires inside a nuclear weapon.

Across the world this very task might be performed by a civilian or by an Air Force 2W2X1 Nuclear Weapons Specialist. At first glance, it seems simple; connect the red wire to the red wire and the green wire to the green wire. But around 8 percent of men are born with red-green color vision deficiency (color blindness) that makes it difficult for them to differentiate between red and green (and many other color combinations. The US Air Force correctly requires normal color vision for this role.

Not all color tests are created equal. Some vision tests catch 99 percent of people with colorblindness and others catch 90 or even 50 percent of colorblind individuals. An analogy may be useful in illustrating this point.

If, for example, a worker was testing a component and needed to detect 14MeV neutrons, a detector that simply says “between 2 and 20 MeV neutrons were detected” would be unacceptable. A tester with adequate sensitivity is required to test critical components. Detectors that verify the specific reading may even be required. Sensitive tests for humans who work on nuclear weapons is also required.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently updated its standards, rejecting the century-old Ishihara color vision test and the D-15 test due to known shortcomings. The Ishihara test is fairly good at detecting red-green defects but will miss 100 percent of blue (Tritan) defects. Humans have red, green, and blue light sensitive cones in their eyes, and the Ishihara only tests two cones and ignores blue vision entirely. The D-15 test can pass up to half of individuals with color blindness, depending on how its administered (a test commonly used by police departments).

Figure 1. Simulated Color Vision Defects and Wire Color

Even if Pantex adopted one of the FAA’s “best in class” tests, such as the CAD, Rabin, or Waggoner Computerized Color Vision Test (WCCVT), there is still another issue—test frequency. Color vision should be tested periodically, not just once.

While 8 percent of men and 0.5 percent of women) are born with color blindness, it is expected that 15 percent of all people will develop an acquired color vision deficiency during their lifetime, most often affecting blue vision. Most people assume color vision is a static ability, but it is more like hearing loss, which is impacted by age and environmental factors.

Changes in color vision ability can occur rapidly due to medications, diseases, or environmental conditions. For critical roles, annual color vision testing should be a minimum standard.

Finally, different color vision tests examine different axes within the visible spectrum of light, meaning that a person could pass the Rabin but fail the WCCVT based on individual differences and the specific axis tested by each test. This is truer for mild vision defects but mild defects can still cause sub-par performance on real world tasks (i.e., reacting to red traffic lights).

Across the United States, teams are working to quantify this human element in complex, high-consequence systems. These include the Air Force’s 711th Human Performance Wing and the social scientists at Sandia National Laboratories.

The next time you hear about a cognitive psychologist, industrial-organizational psychologist, or human factors researcher at a national lab, do not assume they’re experimenting with LSD and goats to perfect psychic warfare. They’re far more likely to be studying how humans interact with technology—quantifying behavior, limitations, cognition, and the human’s reliability within critical systems.

Organizations should, whenever possible, bring these human-focused professionals into projects. They will identify issues most engineers never consider across a variety of scales, “from neurons to nations.” Factors like color vision, tool slips, (as in the Louis Slotin “demon core” incident), dropped sockets (as in the Titan II missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas), mismatched job abilities, fatigue, attention lapses, and even intentional sabotage can all impact the nation’s deterrence posture. When processes are optimized to include the human, overall risk is minimized.

In the end, deterrence is not just about weapons. It is about the humans behind the weapons, the fallible, unpredictable, indispensable human element that remains both our greatest strength and our greatest risk.

Rob Kittenger, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are his own.

Meet the Human in Nuclear Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

30 HS Rebuilding Lethality: Conservative Priorities for U.S. Nuclear and Missile Defense FY 2027 with Robert Peters was originally published on Global Security Review.

The challenge with all such posts is that they never tell the whole story. Yes, Russia and China are refusing to enter arms control negotiations with the United States and Russia is believed to be conducting hydronuclear tests that produce a nuclear yield, but the President’s post does not mean what you may think.

Contrary to the wailing and gnashing of teeth of arms control advocates after Trump’s post, he is not calling for a return to detonating nuclear warheads under the Nevada desert. He is calling for something much different, which is why his post included, “…on an equal basis.” This point is important and was seemingly lost on many.

What many Americans may not know is that the United States last tested a nuclear weapon in 1992 and has, since at least 1996, interpreted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to mean that nuclear testing cannot produce a nuclear yield. Thus, the United States, has voluntarily followed the CTBT and produced “zero yield” in the many tests it has conducted over the past three decades. American scientists were able to verify the continued safety, security, and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear arsenal without producing an explosive yield.

President Trump is simply enabling American scientists to conduct hydronuclear tests that can provide higher fidelity results as the nation modernizes its existing nuclear warheads and begins building the first new nuclear warhead in more than a generation. This is a very important distinction.

The President, who often speaks in generalities, can be faulted for not offering a level of detail that explained his post more clearly, but articles claiming he does not understand nuclear testing may be less accurate than the President’s critics believe. The relationship between the Department of War and the Department of Energy, when it comes to nuclear weapons, is symbiotic. The Department of Energy designs and builds the weapons at its federally funded and privately operated labs, under the management of the National Nuclear Security Agency, but the Department of War drives the demand for capabilities. Thus, criticizing the President for saying the Department of War will do the testing is a bit of a hollow victory.

With Russia unwilling to extend New START and China’s continuing unwillingness to join multilateral arms control negotiations, President Trump’s statement was an attempt at demonstrating American resolve in the face of America’s declining nuclear position. The reality is that Russia understands its strength is in its nuclear forces, not its conventional capabilities.

If President Trump deserves criticism for anything, it is incorrectly suggesting that the American nuclear arsenal is superior to that of Russia; it is not. Russia’s arsenal is both newer and larger than that of the United States.

Russia may also breakout of New START limits upon the treaty’s expiration, which is a worrying prospect for the United States. Russia’s abrogation the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 2023, in retaliation for Western support of Ukraine, is also concerning. It is, however, unsurprising. Before, Russia at least tried to ensure any violations of the “zero yield” understanding was hidden from the global public. That may cease if the Ukraine war continues. Although, President Trump’s announcement may have contained Russian ambitions.

Russia may have announced “reciprocal measures” if the United States begins testing, but Vladimir Putin knows the US is looking to conduct tests at the same level as Russia’s existing tests. China called on the US to uphold the moratorium on nuclear testing, but China may have also violated the “zero yield” threshold in its effort to build advanced nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, neither the Chinese nor Russian programs is particularly visible to Western monitoring efforts.

The prospects for Russo-American cooperation are low, but this should come as no surprise considering nuclear weapons are Russia’s trump card, no pun intended, when it comes to limiting Western support to Ukraine. Putin cannot afford to lose in Ukraine. His head, quite literally, is on the line.

Chinese nuclear forces are still inferior to American nuclear forces, but not for long. Thus, joining multilateral negotiations are not in China’s core interests as the Chinese Communist Party builds a nuclear arsenal fit for deterring American intervention with Chinese plans to seize Taiwan and perhaps other disputed territories. Of course China responded to President Trump’s post by calling it “unreasonable and unrealistic.” Hypocrisy on nuclear issues will not, however, stop Chinese communists from expanding their arsenal.

President Trump’s post is understandable given the world in which he finds himself. The President must try to deter continued Chinese and Russian aggression. If resuming nuclear testing helps, it is well worth the effort. What the President’s words will not do is start an arms race. That would require the United States to be a participant, and the Chinese and Russians left the starting blocks long ago.

Adam Lowther is the Co-founder and VP for Research at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.  Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Understanding President Trump’s Truth Social Post on Nuclear Testing? was originally published on Global Security Review.

For advocates of renewed nuclear weapons testing, stop packing for the journey to the Nevada National Security Sites (NNSS). No mushroom cloud or subterranean detonation is soon to take place. Anti-nuclear protestors should also stay home.

The truth is less exciting. No real changes will happen “immediately” that “light up the sky and shake the ground.” This is not to say that the announcement had no effect. In fact, the statement was indeed monumental and incredibly significant.

Contrary to public perception, the US has never ceased testing its nuclear weapon systems. What has changed since the 1992 self-imposed moratorium on high-yield explosive testing is the nature of those tests.

Before 1992, the US conducted 1,054 nuclear weapon test explosions. The country detonated 839 of those warheads underground, mostly at the then-named Nevada Test Site, where the last halted test, Icecap, still stands as a memorial to the explosive testing days.

Several scientists involved in Icecap acknowledge that, owing to the extensive preparations undertaken, such as instrumentation, computational simulation, analysis, and test rigging, the most significant insights were gained from the limited number of unsuccessful tests. In other words, there is still great confidence in the performance and reliability of the American nuclear arsenal. It is this kind of “testing” to which President Trump’s declaration is likely referring.

Since 1992, testing has been through proxy systems that simulate a nuclear explosion’s unique energy output and then uses the results to validate physics models on advanced computer systems, known as physics-based modeling. This approach provides a way to validate the physics and predict the performance of a nuclear explosion under conditions that were never known in an underground test.

Scientists continuously conduct these tests, improving and refining them as added details are learned. They often report that scientists know much more now than possible from explosive testing.

Despite the president’s directive that testing “will begin immediately,” experts agree that resuming full-scale nuclear explosive testing is a complex and time-consuming endeavor. According to the Arms Control Association, it would take at least 36 months to prepare the Nevada Test Site for contained underground detonations.

This includes environmental assessments, infrastructure upgrades, and political approvals. This does not mean that explosive testing is impossible, but it represents a clear change in policy and a national effort to move nuclear weapons to the forefront of national strategy through an active nuclear explosive testing program.

The phrase “on an equal basis” is particularly provocative. It implies that nations like Russia and China may already be conducting nuclear explosive tests or at least advancing their capabilities in ways that challenge the spirit of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Either of these should sound alarms and rightly must elicit a response.

The president has chosen precisely the response as outlined in the National Institute for Deterrence Studies’ (NIDS) Dynamic Parity report, where a response matches the activities of adversaries, giving them the option to continue expanding their nuclear capabilities, knowing how America will respond, or cease and return to the table to negotiate for a more stable relationship.

The announcement of an “immediate” resumption of (explosive) testing is monumental because of its effect on deterrence. In his international policy book, The Necessity of Choice, Henry Kissinger writes that deterrence is the (mathematical) product of will and capability. Few would question that the US has a nuclear arsenal and delivery systems that can cause incredible damage and harm. However, there is growing criticism and concern that the US lacks resolve to deploy its nuclear weapons even if an existential crisis arises.

Without clear signals of resolve, adversaries may doubt American willingness to act, weakening deterrence. This declaration supports that resolve without making a direct threat to any adversary. It simply puts them on notice.

Whether President Trump’s message leads to actual detonations or remains symbolic, it marks a turning point in American nuclear policy. It also aligns with the Dynamic Parity framework advocated by Curtis McGiffin and Adam Lowther, which calls for symmetrical deterrence and strategic clarity.

President Trump is demonstrating resolve, assuring allies, and highlighting American commitment to nuclear deterrence. The path forward should prioritize modernization, transparency, and diplomacy—not a return to the destructive rituals of past decades.

James C. Petrosky, PhD, is the President and Co-founder of the National Institute for Deterrence Studies and Professor Emeritus of the Air Force Institute of Technology. Views expressed in this article are the authors own. 

“Resumption of Nuclear Testing”—Not So Fast! was originally published on Global Security Review.

During his first term, Trump engaged in other symbolic actions that upended the status quo, such as when he moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, declaring, “We finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.” He also became the first sitting US president to meet with a North Korean leader, smashing decades of diplomatic norms.

Given Trump’s willingness to talk to anyone, to call it like he sees it, and to use symbolism to project American strength, it should come as no surprise that he is unafraid of reconsidering policies related to China and Taiwan. He has already done so.

By almost every measure, Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country. Thus, upgrading the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto embassy, to an official US embassy is worthy of consideration, even if it would mean a fundamental change to American Taiwan policy.

Such a move would undoubtedly cause a Chinese backlash, but it would likely make it harder for China to claim that Taiwan is a rebellious province—a position unsupported by history. Taiwan is Taiwanese. Eliminating names like Chinese Taipei at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is a good idea and recognizes Taiwan for what it is—an independent country.

If shaking hands with a North Korean dictator is okay, then shaking hands with a Taiwanese president should also be acceptable. Kowtowing to China is the wrong answer. The truth is, the US is preparing to militarily defend Taiwan. Restoring the formal alliance with Taiwan is a natural step. Sacrificing Taiwan for cheap Chinese goods and a more powerful China is a bad idea.

Trump once famously claimed, “I alone can fix it,” referring to America’s broken system of governance. In the special case of US-Taiwan relations, he may be correct.

As part of his quest to “make America great again,” Trump could begin reversing the damage done by former President Jimmy Carter, who abrogated the alliance with Taiwan in 1979. That was a mistake that deserves correcting.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) recently argued that Trump would deserve a Nobel Peace Prize if he could convince Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to renounce the use of force to annex Taiwan. This would presumably entail the repeal of China’s 2005 Anti-Secession Law, if not China’s formal recognition of Taiwan’s sovereignty.

To have any chance of success, Trump would need to give Xi a compelling reason for choosing peace. He would need to give Taiwan a credible way to deter an invasion, at least until China proved trustworthy.

Nuclear weapons are currently the only weapons terrifying enough to accomplish these objectives. This is a fact underscored by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who last year told a European Council summit, “Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons and that will be our protection or we should have some sort of alliance [such as NATO].”

One thing that Trump and Xi have in common is that they both wish to go down in history as the greatest leaders of their respective countries. Until now, Xi has aimed to achieve greatness by conquering Taiwan—something no previous Chinese communist leader did.

Invading Taiwan would be a costly gamble, risking trillions of dollars and millions of lives, with an uncertain chance of success. On the other hand, committing to peace is simple and costs nothing. Finding a way for China to preserve “face” is the critical hurdle for the US.

President Lai did not mention it, but if the Nobel Peace Prize were awarded to Trump, then Xi would be a co-recipient. That may be a point worth considering.

Imagine two versions of the future, one in which Xi orders the invasion of Taiwan and one in which he wins the Nobel Peace Prize for recognizing Taiwan’s independence. It is the latter scenario that would ensure both Xi and Trump go down in history as great leaders.

That is a conversation worth having in future meetings between Trump and Xi. China is fundamentally an aggressive nation, but that aggression can be checked while still ensuring that the Chinese Communist Party maintains international respect.

Lindell Lucy lives in Honolulu. He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a master’s degree in international relations from the Harvard Extension School. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

How Taiwan Could Earn Trump a Nobel Peace Prize was originally published on Global Security Review.

The near completion of Iran’s nuclear weapon brings to mind another rogue state’s activities. In 2006, after years of global efforts aimed at preventing the Kim regime from obtaining nuclear weapons, North Korea (DPRK) conducted its first nuclear test. Today, the DPRK has an estimated 50 nuclear weapons and fissile material for 6 or 7 more.

An in-depth comparison of US engagement with Iran and the DPRK’s nuclear programs requires a much longer paper. However, a brief comparative analysis of American deterrence of these adversaries is possible. Applying national interests, objectives, and activities, a methodology employed by decision analysis experts yields interesting results.

Globally, the United States has an enduring interest in safeguarding its national security and sovereignty. Underneath this enduring interest, it has a core objective of defending allies and partners, including through credible deterrence (e.g., preventing conventional and/or nuclear attacks on allies and partners by the DPRK, China, Russia, and Iran). Other major American objectives include safeguarding the free flow of commerce, countering transnational threats, preventing regional domination or aggression, and advancing nonproliferation.

The United States advances deterrence through a range of activities, including the presence of its own military assets and security cooperation with allies and partners. In the Indo-Pacific, this includes mutual defense treaties with Australia, the Philippines; South Korea, and Japan (the latter two of which are explicitly covered by the US nuclear umbrella); arms sales to Taiwan; and military exercises with allies.

More recently, the Trump administration emphasized increased allied defense spending to support “burden-sharing.” Given the limitations of the American industrial base, this is necessary even as the US maintains efforts to prevent Chinese and North Korean aggression.

Deterrence against North Korea is successful insofar as it keeps the North from invading the South or launching nuclear strikes on US Indo-Pacific allies. However, this deterrence is increasingly complicated by Chinese and Russian protection of the DPRK through mutual defense treaties.

This lends greater urgency to the American call for allies to increase defense spending, as there is a real risk of simultaneous conflict with China and North Korea, a scenario requiring substantial military assets in the region. Fulfilling the objective of regional deterrence also requires containing aggression from adversaries and bolstering security cooperation with allies and partners.

The United States supports deterrence in the Middle East by deploying its military forces and cooperating with allies and partners. However, regional deterrence, which does not formally extend the US nuclear umbrella to regional allies and partners (including Israel), often manifests as kinetic operations against adversaries, whether through security assistance or direct attacks. Thus, in the Middle East, deterrence also means advancing the goals of counter proliferation and degrading terror groups who threaten allies.

Unlike in the Indo-Pacific, where the United States prefers to contain aggression and expansion from nuclear-armed adversaries without firing a shot, in the Middle East, it will employ kinetic means to fulfill its objectives. For decades, the United States deterred Iran through sanctions, negotiations, and the threat of military action. It was when President Trump believed Iran’s uranium enrichment program was “at its highest levels and…unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons” that the US conducted kinetic attack.

The deep rifts in Middle East politics complicates the activities needed to maintain deterrence in the region. Prospects for security cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states, for example, are challenging given the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, including Israel’s recent strike against Hamas in Qatar.

Deterrence must also account for energy security concerns, given that US attempts to contain a nuclear-armed Iran may lead the regime to weaponize its control over the Straits of Hormuz. It is also unclear how far back American strikes set Iran’s nuclear program. If Iran’s proxy network persists, they can also commit further violence against the United States, its allies, and partners through attacks on military, commercial, and civilian targets.

None of these challenges are simple. In the coming years American deterrence guarantees to allies and partners may look very different as the nation shifts focus to the homeland and the Indo-Pacific. It remains to be seen how this imperative is realized in the forthcoming National Defense Strategy. Some critics note that, in practice, the United States remains heavily focused on the Middle East and Europe. Much of the ability to deter Iran and North Korea will be determined by these larger strategic shifts.

As American decision-makers face questions about effectively deploying American power across the globe, analyzing national interests, objectives, and activities can provide a helpful framework. Assessing the requirements needed to advance larger regional goals brings trade-offs into focus, better preparing the American warfighter for multiple threat scenarios. In short, this approach can yield meaningful results for those in the decision-making chair at critical moments when faced with complex problems, including maintaining credible deterrence.

Nathan Heath is an analyst at NSI. Views expressed are his own.

Deterrence of North Korea and Iran: Interests-Objectives-Analysis Framework was originally published on Global Security Review.

Great care was taken to secure the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons following the collapse of the state for this very purpose. The Obama administration later held four nuclear security summits to inspire international cooperation for increasing physical security at nuclear facilities. Today, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Material Management and Minimization leads the effort to convert the fuel in various international civilian reactors from weapons-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU) to less risky low enriched uranium (LEU).

Despite these successes, it remains difficult to definitively discern whether specific action prevented and deterred nuclear terrorism or if other factors are at play for why such an event never materialized. It is a fact that no terrorist group has yet successfully pursued a strategy to develop a nuclear device. Yet, it may very well be the case that no group has ever legitimately tried. Terrorism as a strategy of targeted political violence may be largely incompatible with the consequences of acquiring and detonating an improvised nuclear device.

In 2004, US President George W. Bush received unanimous support from the UN for a resolution calling on countries to enact stronger controls to block terrorists from acquiring biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Since then, American policy turned away from the global war on terror and back to the strategic competition found in the Cold War. The fourth International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS) held in May 2024 was the first of its kind to conclude without a ministerial declaration. Yet, the risk of nuclear terrorism has arguably not grown despite a shift in national security priorities.

In a 2019 piece written for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, authors Christopher McIntosh and Ian Storey argue that there are four main options for a terrorist group that acquires a nuclear weapon: blackmail, opacity, latency, and dormancy. These options fall on a spectrum from overt threats of nuclear use to keeping the existence of a nuclear device a secret until its detonation. In all of these strategies, however, deterring a nuclear attack is possible as the outcome for use is the same: guaranteed massive retaliation from state governments.

As outlined by Keith Payne in a National Institute of Public Policy report, some scholars incorrectly assume that terrorist groups are undeterrable because they are irrational and possess no territory to hold at risk for assured retaliation. Terrorism is a fundamentally local endeavor and maintaining the support from the surrounding populations is key to preserving the cause. A deterrence by punishment scenario therefore also involves inciting local communities to turn on the terrorists they harbor.

Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” The key word is “premeditated” and supports the argument that groups employing terrorism are indeed rational actors, with their decisions about organizational structure, monitoring of funds, and selection of recruits providing evidence to support this statement. As with any rational actor, deterrence is possible.

A deterrence-by-denial strategy, although more difficult, is also legitimate. Ensuring states make it as difficult as possible for groups to acquire material aims to deter groups from even trying. Convincing states to do this may then require assured retaliation from other states. Perhaps there is a reason why former Secretary of Defense William Perry’s fears of North Korea selling plutonium to the highest bidder never materialized. For a regime already well-familiar with the international community’s condemnation of its nuclear program, giving others another reason to take out its nuclear facilities by selling material to a group would be strategically unwise.

However, for a nuclear peer of the United States, such as Russia, holding it responsible for lax security is more difficult. In 2011, a Moldovan lawyer was caught attempting to sell HEU on the black market. Forensic analysis confirmed the material very likely originated from Russia. This is not the first time weapon-usable nuclear material has gone missing from Russia. Still, Russia, like any other state, is motivated to prevent nuclear terrorism within its borders; the likeliest place for such an attack to happen is near the facility where material goes missing.

In physicist Michael Levi’s opinion, deterrence credibility is better served with certain attribution following an attack. Going further than assessing a relationship between a state program and a terrorist group, nuclear forensics attempts to identify exactly which country interdicted material originated. At best, a state would be forced to admit poor security practices that led to the theft of material. If used in a terror device, this excuse may not hold up to international scrutiny with any community affected still demanding its pound of flesh.

Neither a strategy of deterrence by punishment or by denial requires the level of explicit policy that was seen in the early 2000s. While not unhelpful, it is rather the continued existence of nuclear-armed states with massive conventional superiority over terror groups that may be the most successful tool in combating the risk of nuclear terrorism. Deterrence against nuclear terrorism, for now, is holding.

Alexis Schlotterback is a Senior Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed are the author’s own. 

Deterring Nuclear Terrorism in the Era of Great Power Competition was originally published on Global Security Review.

So sure was Israel in its southern security that intelligence reports were downplayed; the military even redeployed troops from Gaza prior to the October 7. The brutality of the attack and horror at the hostage crisis left Israel so shocked that it delayed a ground invasion for 20 days.

Despite the delay, calls for ceasefire and accusations of genocide existed before Israel’s offensive began. All the same, every first-semester international relations student knew what would happen next: with Hamas no longer deterred, Israel’s only recourse was compellence.

Compellence theory is simply acting on the threat that keeps your adversary deterred. Israel needed to compel Hamas to surrender the hostages, disarm, and realize that attacking Israel is a bad idea—restoring deterrence. For nearly two years since, Israel has tested compellence theory; at best, with mixed results, not only with Hamas, but across the region.

The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah launched its own attack on October 8, 2023, which by the end saw the launch of approximately 10,000–15,000 rockets and 2,500 drone attacks that displaced at least 70,000 Israelis and killed 75 soldiers and 45 civilians. Israel’s effort to restore deterrence devastated Hezbollah, killing 2,500–3,000 fighters, eliminating the majority of its leadership, through an exploding beeper attack in advance of a ground invasion. Seeing their losses, the group agreed to partially disarm and stay out of further hostilities, being effectively compelled.

In Yemen, the Houthis likewise joined the attack on Israel with rocket and drone attacks, as well as targeting ships off its coast, causing significant supply-chain disruptions. The attacks prompted the United States (US) to designate them a terrorist group and launch an aerial campaign alongside the United Kingdom—on top of Israel’s responses.

The Houthis endured severe damage to its offensive infrastructure and lost hundreds of fighters but still managed to occasionally launch limited attacks. The Houthis are more weakened than compelled.

Iran, the financier of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, for the first time acted against Israel directly. Retaliating against Israeli strikes, Iran launched ballistic missile and drone salvos against Israel in April and October of 2024. The tit-for-tat came to a head over 12 days in June 2025, as the two exchanged strikes while Israel tried to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Though the damage Iran’s nuclear capability took is debated, what is known is Israel’s air superiority destroyed nearly all of Iran’s defense framework and eliminated several senior military staff.

Israel endured significant damage as Iran managed to breach its defenses on a few occasions, and the two have since agreed to a ceasefire, while simultaneously pledging readiness to attack in the future. So perhaps, they are mutually deterred for now.

Syria recently entered a new phase of its civil war following the downfall of Assad, an Israeli push to expand its buffer region, and the emergence of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) faction. HTS is led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, an Islamic State affiliate who recently began targeting members of Syria’s minority populations, largely the Druze.

Israel intervened to protect the Druze, striking HTS sites until Julani quickly agreed to withdraw his troops from the Druze-populated areas. Prior to that intervention, there were rumors of Syria joining the Abraham Accords. While compellence worked to protect the Druze in the short term, it may have derailed a long-term peace deal.

Hamas remains the outlier. Ceasefire talks are again looking to collapse. The message is that despite the devastation, loss of leadership, approximately 17,000 lost fighters, and thousands of civilians killed in the crossfire, it can endure more. Israel’s attempt at compellence was so intense, that it sparked worldwide protests and allegations of genocide. Yet, rather than agree to Israel’s terms, Hamas continues to hold out, giving a statement that they will continue to fight until a Palestinian state is established.

The US attempted to broker multiple ceasefires, with some success in November 2023 and January 2025, but a deal to end the conflict remains elusive. If the US wants real results, compellence should target Hamas’ hosts and financiers, Turkey and Qatar.

While publicly on good terms with the US, the argument that Turkey and Qatar are state sponsors of terrorism would not be difficult to make given the support and protection they have offered Hamas. President Trump could threaten to add Turkey and Qatar to the list of state sponsors of terror unless Hamas agrees to Israel’s terms of ending the war.

There are indications that this could work. At least publicly, the two countries recently joined with Saudi Arabia and Egypt in a call on Hamas to disarm and relinquish control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. This is a good first step, but the call has no “or else”–type clause that would actually pressure Hamas.

With that support gone, Hamas’ political leadership’s only choice would be deportation from its hosts which would likely jeopardize their finances and potentially put them within Mossad’s reach or accede to Israel’s conditions. Ever self-interested, the hope is they would be compelled to the latter. This type of diplomatic pressure directed at Hamas’ sponsors could trickle down to Hamas’ leadership and potentially be the last best hope for Gazan civilians as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signals plans for a renewed military offensive in the enclave.

Whether deterrence is restored by Israel is yet to be determined. For the sake of civilians on both sides, let us hope it is restored and soon.

Justin Leopold-Cohen is a homeland security analyst in Washington, DC. He has written widely on national and international security issues for outlets including Small Wars Journal, the Wavell Room, and Inkstick Media. Any views expressed in the article are his own and not representative of, or endorsed by, any organization or government.

Failed Deterrence and Misplaced Compellence in Gaza was originally published on Global Security Review.

The credibility of the nation’s nuclear deterrent, the ultimate guarantor of sovereignty, is inextricably linked to domestic well-being. Economic prosperity, social cohesion, and the trust citizens have in their institutions are all part of that amorphous concept. Adversaries like Russia and China understand that it is in their interest to undermine American societal health; it is time Americans realize the challenge facing the nation.

For decades, the logic of nuclear deterrence rested on a triad of capabilities, credibility, and communication. The United States fielded the world’s most advanced nuclear arsenal and communicated credibility effectively. But credibility—the unwavering belief in America’s will to act—is the lynchpin.

This is where the home front becomes the front line. A nation that is prosperous, unified, and optimistic possesses the strategic endurance to maintain its commitments. Societal well-being is not a “soft” issue separate from “hard” power; it is a foundational strategic asset that fuels long-term political resolve.

The mechanisms connecting a healthy society to a credible deterrent are not merely theoretical. They are etched into recent history. Consider the 1980s under President Reagan. An economic resurgence and a renewed sense of national confidence provided the political capital and financial resources for a sweeping modernization of nuclear forces that saw the Peacekeeper ICBM and the B-2 stealth bomber enter service.

This was not just a military build-up; it was a clear signal to the Soviet Union, born from a nation that had the resources and the will to compete over the long haul. High public trust, buoyed by economic stability, sustained the political commitment for these massive, multi-decade investments.

Contrast this with the period following the 2008 financial crisis. The ensuing economic pain, political polarization, and public discontent led directly to the Budget Control Act and sequestration, which imposed punishing cuts on the defense budget. Allies and adversaries alike watched as Americans debated whether they could afford to modernize an aging nuclear triad. The signal was one of constraint and introspection, raising quiet questions in foreign capitals about the long-term reliability of America’s security guarantees. A nation struggling with internal economic and social crises inevitably projects an image of distraction and dwindling resolve.

Adversaries did not miss this lesson. They astutely integrated America’s domestic vulnerabilities into their national security strategies. China and Russia are engaged in a relentless campaign of information warfare designed to exacerbate our societal fissures. State-controlled media outlets like CGTN (Chinese) and RT (Russian), amplified by armies of bots and trolls on social media, relentlessly spotlight American inequality, racial tensions, and political gridlock.

Their goal is twofold: erode the confidence of Americans in their own democratic system and persuade the world that the United States is a chaotic, declining power whose deterrence is brittle and promises are hollow. By turning societal metrics into weapons against Americans, adversaries aim to achieve strategic gains without firing a shot.

Of course, the relationship between societal health and defense is not without its complexities. A valid counterargument holds that a society enjoying high well-being might become complacent, preferring to spend its “peace dividend” on social programs rather than defense. The post–Cold War era saw this exact debate, as calls to shift funding from “guns to butter” grew louder.

This presents a genuine leadership challenge that requires articulating why investments in national security are essential to protecting the very prosperity and stability Americans enjoy. The choice is not always between a new healthcare program and a new submarine. A strong, healthy, and educated populace, free from economic precarity, is the very foundation that allows a nation to project power and afford the tools of its own defense. A robust social safety net and a powerful military are not mutually exclusive—they are mutually reinforcing pillars of a resilient state.

This calculus extends to the nation’s most critical strategic advantage: America’s network of alliances. The strength of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), for instance, is not purely a measure of its combined military hardware. It is rooted in a collective commitment to democratic values and the shared societal well-being of its members.

A stable, prosperous, and unified America reassures allies and strengthens collective deterrence. Conversely, an America seen as internally fractured and unreliable invites doubt, weakening the very alliances that magnify American power. When allied societies are confident in American leadership, collective credibility soars.

Therefore, Americans must rethink national security for the twenty-first century by placing American well-being at the very heart of our strategic imperatives. Bridging the economic divide not only broadens our tax base but also strengthens social cohesion, enabling sustainable defense budgets without overburdening taxpayers. Revitalizing education fuels scientific breakthroughs and cultivates the skilled workforce needed to modernize our nuclear command, control, and delivery systems. Upgrading infrastructure, from critical ports and highways to resilient cybersecurity networks, enhances our logistical agility, accelerates force deployment, and bolsters the credibility of our deterrent. By fostering political unity, we project resolve to allies and adversaries alike, inoculating our society against foreign information warfare and ensuring decisive, coordinated responses in times of crisis.

The defining contest of this century will not be waged on traditional battlefields but in a struggle of systems: our free, prosperous, and cohesive society versus an authoritarian model of centralized control. To secure our peace, we must fortify America’s Silent Shield at home. The credibility of our nuclear deterrent, and, by extension, our global leadership, will always mirror the resilience and unity of the nation it protects.

Brandon Toliver, PhD, serves on the A4 staff of Headquarters Air Force. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States government, the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or the United States Space Force.

America’s Silent Shield: How Domestic Strength Sustains Nuclear Power was originally published on Global Security Review.

American allies are unanimous in rejecting extended deterrence that does not include the potential use of nuclear weapons. NFU would give a nuclear-armed adversary, such as Russia, a sanctuary from which to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. Removing American nuclear forces as a credible deterrent cedes all bargaining power to Moscow, China, and any other would-be nuclear or conventional adversary.

Associated with this campaign is an effort to remove the president’s authority to employ nuclear weapons without at least two additional officials supporting such a decision. They also claim the president would have very little time to decide to retaliate with nuclear weapons, should the US face a nuclear first strike. Of course, ending the president’s “sole authority” would only exacerbate the challenge.

There is a false argument often repeated that American nuclear weapons are on “hair trigger alert” and the president might make a reckless decision to launch, given the assumed minimal time available to determine whether a nuclear response is warranted. It is of course clear how such a decision-making process is significantly impeded if the president must receive concurrence from other officials to make a decision. Such a move reduces the credibility of American deterrence in the minds of adversaries.

Three other factors are also being brought to bear in this campaign to adopt a NFU strategy. First, there is an assertion that the president could be reckless and impetuous and might unnecessarily order the use of nuclear weapons. Second, there is an assertion that a president’s order may be illegal and thus having a “second confirmation authority/opinion” is a good thing. Third, there is an assertion that American deterrence strategy requires the use of nuclear weapons against cities and urban areas—with the objective of killing millions of civilians.

All three assertions are false. The first assertion is belied by the fact that every president understands the dangers of nuclear war. President Donald Trump made several statements to this effect, so the notion he, or any president, would be “reckless and impetuous” does not bear scrutiny. His administration’s major investments in deterrence illustrate the seriousness with which the country seeks to prevent any use of nuclear weapons.

The second assertion on the “illegality” of ordering nuclear use ignores the constitutional role of the president as commander in chief. States wage war regardless of whether the United Nations says it is illegal. Nuclear weapons are merely tools of war. They are not special. They simply pack more explosive energy in a smaller package than a conventional weapon.

The third assertion ignores the Department of Defense Law of War Manual, which explicitly states that attacks against unarmed civilians and non-combatants violate just war principles and are prohibited. American nuclear deterrence strategy explicitly rules out the purposeful targeting of civilian populations and cities, a posture many nuclear abolitionists oppose as they advocate city busting.

Given US deterrence strategy strictly forbids the targeting of cities and civilian populations, there is no basis for believing that carrying out the president’s order to employ weapons will be or be seen as illegal by either civilian or military officials. Thus, there is no need for multiple individuals involved in releasing weapons, all while the president is working through an already compressed and stressful timeline.

A recent “study” by the University of Massachusetts and the Human Security Lab cooked the books by asking both military and civilian officials whether they would oppose an “illegal” presidential order requiring the US to launch nuclear weapons against civilians. Many respondents, having been coached to believe such orders were realistically probable, said they would oppose such orders or at least seek to question the orders. These results were then hijacked to create a false narrative that even military officials now doubt President Trump’s leadership and would not obey the commander in chief if ordered to employ nuclear weapons. Given the survey was conducted during the Israel and US military strikes against Iran, the results were designed to call into question the reasonableness of conventional strikes on Iran.

The campaign to call into question American deterrence policy is based on a willful misrepresentation of states policy and strategic reality. Annie Jacobsen dramatized this misinformation in her book Nuclear War: A Scenario, in which she described US nuclear deterrence strategy as crazy. She proposed jettisoning the use of nuclear weapons for deterrence, whether used first or second, and taking such capability completely off the table. When asked what replacement she recommended, Jacobsen claimed such a question was beyond her expertise.

Leaving the nuclear deterrent off the table is part of a concerted disarmament campaign pushed by nuclear abolitionists. These groups were able to ensure the United Nations passed a treaty that bans nuclear weapons, which is as valuable as a treaty which bans war. While 73 nations signed the treaty, none are nuclear weapons states.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is seeking to stop nuclear modernization in the United States, which is strange considering Russia and China are in the midst of major modernization programs. There is nothing less effective than taking a knife to a gunfight, which is exactly what advocates of nuclear disarmament would impose on the free world. For nearly 80 years the US has made sure the nation fields the systems needed to ensure deterrence works. Now is not the time to abandon a successful strategy for the sake of feel-good activism.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

The Campaign to End Nuclear Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

India’s missile development began in 1988 with the short-range Prithvi (150–350 kilometers), followed by the medium-range Agni in 1989 (1,200–2,400 kilometers, nuclear-capable). By 1997, India deployed 24 Prithvi missiles near the Pakistan border—remarkably, without facing US sanctions.

India’s missile arsenal comprises ballistic, cruise, and anti-ballistic systems across all ranges. While its short- and medium-range missiles primarily target Pakistan, India can already reach all of China. India’s development of longer-range systems includes the Agni-V (5,000–7,500 kilometers) and the Agni-VI, which has a potential range up to 10,000 kilometers and is reported to carry multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV) and is usable as a fractional orbital bombardment system. It also has sea-based options like the K-4 and K-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM).

These capabilities signal India’s broader ambitions for global power projection and prestige. Its capabilities now include operational intercontinental ballistic missiles, multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and anti-satellite weapons, marking a shift from regional defense to strategic reach.

Since the formation of the Indo-US strategic partnership in the early 2000s, convergence of strategic interests between Washington and New Delhi has allowed India to benefit from the global nuclear framework, mainly, the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime. India, like Pakistan, is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and has developed its nuclear capabilities independently.

While Pakistan is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime, India has been since 2016. Through an exemption to non-nuclear-weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Missile Technology Control Regime membership is helping India to advance its missile program by providing access to advanced missile technology. Similarly, in 2008, through the Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver, India increased its nuclear production capacity.

The world powers, especially the US, continue to turn a blind eye toward these perilous developments in the region and beyond. Overlooking New Delhi’s global reach with nuclear-capable missiles could be a strategic mistake by Washington. India may, at some point in the future, reassess its strategic alignment with the United States and determine that the partnership no longer aligns with its national interests, raising the possibility that India could emerge as a challenger to American interests, or worse, align with China.

In retrospect, the US and China supported the mujahideen resistance to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, though they did not coordinate their efforts. Later, China would emerge as a competitor to the US globally. Similarly, supporting India against the Chinese threat in the future could become a threat to the US.

The same blind eye on the development of India’s missile programs might hit American interests in the region hard. To give credence to these facts, a plethora of credible think tanks, including Goldman Sachs, the world’s second-largest investment bank, predict that India will have the world’s second-largest economy by 2075. As a result, India will emerge as a direct economic threat to the US, which could translate into a future military challenge.

Checking India’s missile program is not only in the interest of the US but, more importantly, good for global nuclear governance. It is currently marked by ineffectiveness due to the discord between nuclear “haves and have-nots.”

American policy on South Asia continues to overlook key regional developments, focusing instead on Pakistan’s missile program despite broader nuclear trends. Former Biden administration officials like Vipin Narang, Pranay Vaddi, and Jon Finer raised alarms about Pakistan’s pursuit of a long-range missile, labeling it an emerging threat—despite Pakistan’s India-centric military posture and lack of global targeting ambitions.

It is important to investigate the historical and security dynamics in South Asia. Pakistan’s missile program began in the late 1980s after India began to demonstrate its missile capabilities. Pakistan’s missile program represents the country’s India-centric and defense-oriented approach.

For instance, the short-to-medium-range systems (70–2,750 kilometers) are capable of targeting India from within Pakistani territory. The development of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle capability by Pakistan aims to penetrate India’s advanced missile defenses, thereby strengthening deterrence. The Shaheen-III missile, with a range of 2,750 kilometers, meets Islamabad’s requirement to have full coverage of India, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

In the same way, the development of tactical nuclear weapons was in response to India’s Cold-Start Doctrine. This aims to deter conventional incursions with battlefield nuclear use. Thus, acquiring an intercontinental ballistic missile capability is not in Pakistan’s strategic interests.

The silence of the international community on this urgent matter is resulting in the erosion of global nuclear governance. Amidst rising tensions between nuclear states, the world is seeing recurring violations of established rules and international norms. The international community cannot move toward effective arms control arrangements that are aligned with evolving threats, disarmament, and strategic restraint under these conditions. Efforts for global peace and security can never be meaningful until threat perceptions and security challenges are addressed, including the resolution of long-standing disputes between archrivals.

Sher Ali Kakar is the Associate Director Research at Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN), and Musavir Hameed Barech is a Research Officer at Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN).

How the World Is Ignoring a New Nuclear Trajectory in South Asia was originally published on Global Security Review.

Many assumed it was indeed the end of history. After all, between 1987–1993, Washington and Moscow signed four notable arms control deals: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties I and II (START), the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Outer Space, and the Conventional Forces Europe (CFE) treaty.

Russian strategic nuclear weapons were scheduled to drop from over 10,000 deployed to 3,500 by the year 2000. The INF treaty banned shorter range missiles altogether. And Warsaw Pact conventional forces in central Europe and Russia dropped precipitously.

President Reagan’s economic war against Moscow was successful. It ended the Soviet empire by pushing Moscow to the brink of insolvency. Russia could not financially maintain its formidable Cold War nuclear and conventional force levels.

From 1993–2001, the US did not enjoy the promised “end of history.” State sponsors of terror in Iran, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq took the fight to the US, albeit in a different mode than threatening to send massive tank armies through the Fulda Gap into Western Europe.

The US responded with a war that would last more than a decade and cost Americans an estimated $7 trillion. It was all for naught and accomplished very little.

Readiness and Modernization Shortfalls

While spending trillions on nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US Department of Defense (DoD) suffered from severe readiness and modernization shortfalls. The defense budget was roughly $305 billion in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and almost exactly that in 2001 before 9/11. In the interim the budget dropped to as low as $250 billion and it was only after 1996 that the budget gradually increased to $300 billion.

When adjusted for inflation (1991–2011), the defense budget of $300 billion (1991), aside from “overseas contingency operations,” should have grown to $480 billion by 2011, assuming a 3 percent growth rate. That did not happen. The shortfall in defense spending reached $1.25 trillion during the two decades following the Soviet Union’s collapse.

The base defense budget in 2011 was roughly $500 billion, and at first glance equal to that expected. Out of a defense budget of $656 billion, $160 billion was allocated for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the two decades from 2001–2021, the Department of Defense spent $1.56 trillion on nation building—an average of $80 billion annually.

Over three decades after the Cold War’s end, the US did not invest in the modernization of the military. The three-decade peace dividend, which saw $2.8 trillion fewer defense dollars spent, was instead spent domestically and on nation building. As a result, the modernization and recapitalization of the armed forces, especially nuclear forces, were postponed.

By September 11, 2001, the US nuclear forces were already in the field for two decades (Ohio-class submarines), three decades (Minuteman III), and five decades (B-52). The nuclear budget, $77 billion at the end of the Cold War, dropped to less about $25 billion, with most of those funds simply maintaining legacy nuclear forces.

It was not until 2009–2010 that the Obama administration and Congress agreed on a plan for upgrading and replacing nuclear forces—three decades after President Ronald Reagan rolled out his nuclear modernization and sustainment plans in late 1981. New systems are projected to begin fielding in 2031 with completion by 2050.

The failure to prioritize the planning and implementation for replacing aging systems included nuclear command-and-control systems, warheads, and all three legs of the nuclear triad. The belief that the world was safer was a fool’s errand.

By shifting federal dollars from defense to social spending, the US also ensured the workforce needed to build nuclear weapons, space and missile defenses, and cyber systems are no longer there. Vendors associated with the building of Ohio-class submarines and the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) numbered in the hundreds once. Now, the nation is starting from scratch. The submarine industry lost 14,000 workers and now lacks the manpower to meet demand.

As for ICBMs, with the shutdown of the Peacekeeper production line, the US Air Force was left with a guidance and propulsion replacement program that over a period of more than a decade invested $8 billion in making sure the Minuteman III (1970) would stay in the force “through 2030.” Again, many hundreds of vendors no longer exist to make ICBM parts. Even worse is the current state of the available workforce. American universities grant more PhDs in the hard sciences to Chinese students than to American students. Across the board, the US has fewer workers in the hard sciences than needed, although industry is now reaching into the schools to bring students along a planned program of education that leads them to careers in the aerospace business.

The Challenge Ahead

The nation now finds itself in a precarious position at a time when China and Russia are at their most aggressive. The Columbia-class submarine, which will replace the Ohio-class submarine, was recently delayed two years, further increasing costs. And the herculean task of building 450 new ICBM silos armed with 400 missiles will prove costly. The US will maintain the current 400 ICBMs while simultaneously deploying 400 new missiles in new silos. The Sentinel ICBM, a technological marvel, is progressing toward production. It is a highly capable weapon that is planned for initial deployment in 2033.

Chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker (R–MS) recently concluded, “It will take several years of sustained investment and real growth beyond this down payment to keep pace with China’s military advances…. But to be clear: The cost of deterring war will always be dwarfed by the cost of fighting one.” This could not be more true. It is time the American people understand the challenge facing the nation and what it will take to overcome it.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

Invest, Don’t Spend, Peace Dividends was originally published on Global Security Review.

The results of the American air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities serves as a harsh reminder to those who believe multipolarity is the future of the world order. American military power is still unmatched.

Operation Midnight Hammer demonstrated the remarkable military power of the United States and President Donald Trump’s willingness to use it when an adversary crosses American red lines. The surgical strikes of American stealth aircraft and cruise missiles expertly showcased the awesome power of the American military.

The strikes were more than a display of power. They left no doubt that President Trump is laser focused and committed to protecting American vital interests. The strikes were also a message to allies and foes alike that the United States will stand by its allies when facing an existential threat, especially when that ally demonstrates a willingness to defend itself.

Even though the Trump administration used limited strikes against the nuclear facilities, the underlying message is clear. Red lines, deadlines, and ally support are back. Through the masterful use of deception, stealth, and precision, the American strike was unseen. Tehran’s subsequent retaliatory strikes were nothing more than preplanned and face-saving missile launches to placate domestic audiences.

The follow-on ceasefire agreement stands to put an end to Iran’s regional and nuclear ambitions and forces Iran and Israel to tamp down their hostilities to allow for a negotiated settlement. Interestingly, Iran’s allies effectively abandoned Tehran as the Ayatollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) looked feckless and weak compared to the combined strength of Israel and the US.

China, Russia, and Iran’s Middle East proxies were nowhere to be found. The so-called “Axis of Resistance” is in tatters as the result of Israeli and American action. Whether or not Iran takes the opportunity to deescalate and seek a peaceful resolution remains to be seen.  Regardless, Operation Midnight Hammer should be seen as a return to deterrence with Tehran and in the capitals of America’s adversaries worldwide.

Bolstering Alliances

 On the heels of successful air strikes, President Trump received another geostrategic win as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) member states agreed to spend 5 percent of gross domestic product on defense spending. NATO members, with the goading of President Trump, realized that Russian aggression necessitated greater commitment to defense.

Trump’s goal for increased defense spending is not to weaken NATO but to strengthen it. By requiring all members to carry a proportional share of collective defense, American leadership will only strengthen a once great alliance. Russia must reconsider its desire to once again expand its sphere of influence and control by force.

Alliances are based on shared values and commitments. President Trump made it clear that free riding is no longer an option. A strong NATO, with the needed capabilities and political will, can confront aggression and serve as a stabilizing force.

The Dealmaker

 Finally, President Trump made it clear that he desires to be a peacemaker rather than a war maker. Thus, he is seeking to negotiate the end to conflicts around the globe.

First, the administration brokered a peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda to end decades of fighting. The administration states that the peace deal will include mechanisms that address the underlying causes of the conflict and pathways for reconciliation.

Second, Trump continues to work toward the resolution of conflict between Ukraine and Russia. While negotiating peace is proving more difficult than expected, the president continues to work toward an acceptable option.

In another significant turn of events, Trump’s dealmakers made overtures to Israel in pursuit of an end to the conflict in Gaza—hoping to end the conflict in the next few weeks. As part of ending the conflict, several Arab neighbors agreed to allow Gazans to immigrate to their countries.

Additionally, the Trump administration also plans to expand the Abraham Accords so that more Arab nations commit to resolving decades of conflict. Trump’s dealmaking goals are aspirational considering that much work remains to fulfill these goals. After decades of animosity, a two-state solution for the Arabs in Israel would be a welcome step toward a lasting peace.

Russia and China failed to provide any resolution to conflict in the Middle East and Africa. Russia has no ability to negotiate a peace deal considering its continued war on Ukraine.  China’s domestic troubles coupled with its questionable usage of the Belt and Road Initiative are backfiring. Russia and China were unwilling to support their friends in need, whereas Washington sought to end conflict. So much for multipolarity.

The past few weeks show a marked contrast to years of wishful thinking and kicking the proverbial can down the road. Peace through strength, President Trump’s foreign policy agenda, seeks to deter adversaries and assure allies while avoiding new conflicts. Ending protracted conflicts through negotiated settlements may also prove a critical element of the Trump Doctrine. The combination of peace and military power may prove a winning combination.

Russia and China cannot achieve these goals. They lack the standing to do so. It should come as no surprise that all eyes are returning to Washington as the world’s leading power broker. Mark Twain once said in response to news stories he was dead, “The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated.” Much the same is true of America’s unipolar moment.

Todd Clawson is a retired naval officer with 28 years of service and combat tours in the Middle East, Horn of Africa, and South Asia. He holds a doctorate in defense and strategic studies from Missouri State University. The views expressed are his own.

The Return of the United States Primacy was originally published on Global Security Review.

Peace in international affairs is not a natural state; it is actively maintained through strength. As Winston Churchill famously noted, true peace is achieved not by retreating from power, but by wielding it wisely.

Today, with China rapidly modernizing its conventional and nuclear forces and Russia pursuing territorial ambitions backed by nuclear threats, a kinder and gentler approach risks inviting greater aggression. Only a credible deterrence posture—grounded in empirical evidence and historical lessons—can secure strategic stability.

Reinforcing American nuclear dominance is not about favoring conflict over diplomacy; it is about ensuring that American deterrence is strong enough to compel respect and maintain global order in an increasingly volatile world.

First Things First

American nuclear weapons serve as a cornerstone of deterrence, preventing strategic attack and reassuring allies. This element of deterrence is under pressure as China and Russia rapidly expand their arsenals, and North Korea advances its capabilities, creating a complex, multipolar threat environment.

The primary point in the original article was the need to reestablish American nuclear dominance—not as a provocation but as a stabilizing force. In an era of rising threats and eroding deterrence, a more robust and flexible nuclear posture is essential to prevent conflict, assure allies, and preserve global security.

Misreading the Nature of Nuclear Dominance

A primary claim presented by Canyon is that advocating for nuclear dominance is tantamount to seeking advantage through expansion, thereby increasing the risk of catastrophe. This is a misrepresentation of evidence. The call for dominance is not about reckless arms racing or seeking victory in nuclear war. Rather, it is about ensuring that the United States’ nuclear posture is credible, flexible, and resilient enough to deter adversaries in a world where the old rules no longer apply.

The Cold War’s doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) worked because both sides fielded survivable second-strike capabilities and clearly communicated those capabilities to the other. Today, China and Russia are modernizing and diversifying their arsenals at a pace not seen since the 1980s. China’s warhead stockpile surpassed 600 in 2025 and is projected to double by 2030. Russia, meanwhile, maintains the world’s largest inventory of non-strategic nuclear weapons—estimated at 2,000 warheads—many of which are integrated into conventional military operations, as seen in Ukraine.

Dominance in this context means closing critical gaps—like the absence of credible theater-range nuclear options—and ensuring that American extended deterrence is not just theoretical, but practical and adaptable to new threats.

Historical Lessons: Arms Races and Escalation

Invocation of the Cold War arms race is erroneously used as a cautionary tale, suggesting that any move toward dominance will inevitably provoke adversaries and increase the risk of miscalculation. History is more nuanced.

The most dangerous moments of the Cold War—Berlin (1961) and Cuba (1962)—were not the result of American dominance but of perceived weakness, ambiguity, and miscommunication. The 1980s nuclear buildup, while expensive, ultimately contributed to the Soviet Union’s willingness to negotiate arms reductions (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)) from a position of mutual strength. As former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger noted, “Deterrence is not about parity; it’s about credibility and resolve.”

Moreover, the post–Cold War era of American nuclear restraint did not prevent Russia’s annexation of Crimea, China’s militarization of the South China Sea, or North Korea’s nuclear breakout. A senior research professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, asserting that “adversaries exploit perceived gaps in US resolve and capability, not its strength.”

The Risks of a Passive Posture

Canyon argues that modernizing or expanding American nuclear capabilities—such as the SLCM-N or space-based interceptors—will only accelerate a global arms race. Yet, the data show that adversaries are already racing ahead, regardless of American action.

Nearly 95 percent of Russia’s nuclear triad is modernized, with new hypersonic and dual-capable systems. China is rapidly fielding road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), ballistic missile submarines, and hypersonic glide vehicles. North Korea bolsters over 50 nuclear weapons with growing missile survivability and regional reach.

Iran was advancing toward a nuclear threshold, with uranium-enrichment activities previously nearing weapons-grade levels. In response, the United States launched a preemptive strike targeting Iran’s key nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. American officials framed the operation as a limited, precision action designed to neutralize an imminent threat and prevent a larger, more destructive regional war.

By acting before Iran could cross the nuclear threshold, the US aimed to avoid a future scenario in which multiple states—particularly Israel—might engage in broader, uncoordinated military campaigns. The strike also sent a calibrated message intended to deter further escalation while leaving diplomatic channels open.

Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal remains one of the largest in the region, and its proxy network, coordinated through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, continues to operate across Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.

The US, by contrast, faces delays and budget overruns in its own modernization efforts and lacks credible theater-range nuclear options in both Europe and Asia. This is not dominance; it is vulnerability.

Diplomacy and Arms Control: Not Mutually Exclusive

Canyon calls for a return to arms control and diplomacy, citing the expiration of New START in 2026. Diplomacy is essential, but history shows that arms control only works when backed by credible deterrence.

The most successful arms control agreements (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT), INF, START) were negotiated when the US held a position of strength. The collapse of the INF Treaty and the uncertain future of New START are not the result of American intransigence but of Russian violations and China’s refusal to join trilateral talks. As the Congressional Research Service notes, “Arms control is not a substitute for deterrence; it is a complement to it.”

Alliance Cohesion and Forward Deployment

The suggestion that forward-deploying nuclear assets makes allies “targets, not safer” is textbook pacifist propaganda. This ignores decades of alliance management and empirical research. Extended deterrence—backed by visible, credible, American capabilities—has prevented proliferation in Japan, South Korea, and NATO for generations.

A 2023 RAND study found that allies are more likely to pursue their own nuclear options if they doubt American commitments. Forward deployment, joint planning, and regular consultations are essential to alliance cohesion and nonproliferation. The United States’ nuclear umbrella extends to over 30 allied and partner nations, primarily within NATO, but also including countries like Australia, Japan, and South Korea. These nations are assured of American protection, including potential nuclear response, in case of attack.

Economic Trade-offs: Security and Prosperity

Context is key. Canyon points to the $1 trillion cost of nuclear modernization over 30 years, suggesting these funds would be better spent elsewhere. This figure represents less than 5 percent of projected defense spending over that period, and less than 0.1 percent of gross domestic product annually. The cost of deterrence is dwarfed by the potential costs of conventional war should deterrence fail. Small conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq cost over $7 trillion. The cost of a war against China would be far higher.

National strength is not a zero-sum game between security and social spending. The credibility of US leadership—and the stability it underwrites—enables the very prosperity and global order that supports education, healthcare, and infrastructure.

Public Opinion and Global Norms: A Reality Check

Canyon’s claim that “most Americans and the global community favor arms reduction” lacks empirical rigor. Sweeping generalizations like this demand robust, replicated data across diverse populations. Without that, such assertions are more rhetorical than factual.

In contrast, multiple credible surveys reveal consistent public support for deterrence and defense. For example, a November 2022 poll found that 60 percent of Americans believe the military’s primary role is to deter attacks on the US. A national survey showed that a vast majority of voters view nuclear deterrence as critical to national security, with nearly three-quarters supporting modernization efforts.

The 2023 NATO Annual Tracking Survey found that 61 percent of allied respondents believe NATO membership reduces the likelihood of foreign attack, and 58 percent see it as a deterrent. In Germany, 64 percent support a European nuclear deterrent independent of the US, reflecting growing concern over strategic autonomy.

Another poll reported that 69 percent of Americans feel defense spending increases their sense of security. These data points underscore a clear trend; public opinion, in the US and Europe, favors credible deterrence over disarmament, especially amid rising threats from China, North Korea, and Russia. This is the factual foundation that reinforces the case for maintaining and strengthening American nuclear capabilities, not as a provocation, but as a stabilizing force in an increasingly volatile world.

The Real Existential Threats

Extreme weather events, natural disasters, pandemics, and mass displacement are among today’s gravest challenges. Yet, using these non-nuclear crises to justify a softened stance on nuclear deterrence is like comparing apples and oranges. Even the most intelligent and well-informed individuals sometimes fall into the trap of an “either-or” debate, mistakenly assuming it is only possible to address one threat or the other.

Multiple risks demand simultaneous attention. Credible nuclear deterrence is not an overreaction; it is a precise, vital response to a threat that, if unleashed, would compound other crises and shatter global stability.

Conclusion: Dominance as Responsible Leadership

Canyon’s critique is a masterclass in wishful thinking, a dangerously naive philosophy that would lead the free world to ruin if ever implemented. It stems from a misplaced comfort with notions of restraint and diplomacy, ignoring the hard reality that security is founded on military strength. History, from the catastrophic failures of appeasement in the 1930s to the isolationism preceding Pearl Harbor, teaches that weakness only emboldens tyrants. Each concession, whether to Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland or to modern-day aggressors, proves that diplomacy without credible force is nothing more than indulgence.

The current global landscape is dominated by adversaries who respect only strength. Russia, under its neo-imperialist regime, wields its vast nuclear arsenal to bolster conventional aggression. China’s unprecedented military modernization is reshaping the balance of power in Asia, and Iran continues its relentless march toward nuclear capability while sponsoring proxy terror. To imagine that these regimes would respond to soft words or empty promises is akin to believing that a repeatedly misbehaving child will learn simply by being put in timeout. Real change is forced change.

American strength, particularly through a robust nuclear deterrent, is not a provocation; it is the only language these adversaries understand. It ensures that any aggressive action exacts a price too steep to consider. In an increasingly perilous world, where the stakes are nothing less than the survival of global stability, a commitment to maintaining unparalleled military dominance is both pragmatic and essential. Ignoring this reality is not idealism, it is willful blindness that invites disaster.

Brandon Toliver is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

Exposing Willful Blindness: American Strength Is Nonnegotiable was originally published on Global Security Review.

This was not an isolated incident. Civilian-grade drones and other dual-use technologies are increasingly being used to survey or target public infrastructure. From energy grids to airports, the connective tissue of modern life is exposed to risks once confined to traditional warzones. These developments are reshaping global security policies and blurring the boundary between civilian and military domains.

Civilian Tech, Strategic Impact

Cheap unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are now accessible worldwide. While drones were initially developed for military use, the most commonly deployed platforms today, such as DJI’s Mavic series, were originally built for civilian applications like aerial photography and videography. Their affordability, portability, and high-spec cameras made them commercially popular, but those same features have made them easy to repurpose for military contexts.

In particular, first-person view (FPV) drones, designed for immersive recreational flying, were rapidly adapted for frontline use in conflict. These drones are now routinely deployed with improvised explosives or used for precision reconnaissance. In Ukraine, both sides repurposed off-the-shelf drones in vast numbers; nearly two million were produced in 2024 alone. Many of these are equipped with AI-enabled navigation and targeting, underscoring how quickly civilian tech can be weaponised.

Non-state actors are following suit. Armed groups are using FPV drones for low-cost, high impact strikes on infrastructure, blurring the lines between military and civilian threats. This second drone age shows that national security vulnerabilities now stem as much from consumer technology as from conventional arsenals.

The broader implication is clear: private-sector innovations, often created without any defense intent, are shaping the battlefield. These companies bring novel use cases, technical advantages, or agile design processes that legacy defense contractors may overlook. Civilian tech is not just a risk; it is a potential strategic asset. Tapping into this ecosystem, especially among start-ups and experts, could redefine how the country protects critical infrastructure in an era of hybrid conflict.

Infrastructure in the Crosshairs

Modern infrastructure is a key target in modern conflicts or hybrid attacks, just like military bases traditionally were. In 2022, after the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, over 70 drone sightings were reported near Norwegian offshore oil platforms. Oslo feared Russian-linked hybrid operations targeting Europe’s energy supply and deployed naval assets and invited NATO allies to assist in patrols.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s energy grid suffered repeated drone and missile attacks, with waves of low-cost Shahed drones used to disable power plants. By spring 2024, roughly half of Ukraine’s electricity capacity was destroyed, forcing nationwide blackouts.

Outside conflict zones, attacks on infrastructure are also rising. In Sudan, a drone strike on a power station caused regional outages, and other drone attacks on water purification stations left the country on the brink of a significant Cholera outbreak. In the US, federal officials stopped an attack on a power grid by a man using an explosive-carrying drone.

Transportation hubs are vulnerable, too. In January 2025, drone activity shut down Riga Airport, disrupting dozens of flights.

 Gaps in Governance

 Despite growing risks, legal and operational frameworks remain fragmented. Drones and AI-driven surveillance systems often fall outside traditional arms control regimes. As a recent executive order put it, “Criminals, terrorists, and hostile foreign actors have intensified their weaponization of drone technologies, creating new and serious threats to our homeland.”

Jurisdictional confusion is common. In many countries, local authorities lack legal authority to respond to rogue drones above critical sites. Aviation safety rules and privacy laws create hesitation, giving bad actors a head start.

Even when threat awareness exists, coordination is inconsistent. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warns that drones are used for surveillance and sabotage, yet they lack the comprehensive tools to oversee private-sector resilience or cross-border response.

 A Global Security Challenge

 Drone and AI threats are not confined by borders. In 2023, the European Commission launched a new counter-drone strategy, urging member states to harden infrastructure and coordinate airspace protections. NATO has added counter-UAS exercises to its joint drills, while AUKUS partners are beginning to share emerging drone and AI tactics.

But international law is lagging. There is still no global treaty governing the use of armed drones or autonomous surveillance. Export control regimes struggle to manage proliferation of AI-enabling components. At the UN, efforts to establish binding norms on autonomous weapons are stalled. Ad hoc coordination is, however, slowly improving.

When Norway’s oil platforms were threatened, NATO allies were called in within days. After drone sightings near Dutch and Belgian ports, neighboring governments exchanged countermeasure plans. These models suggest a path forward: rapid and collective responses based on shared tools, shared doctrine, and shared threat intelligence.

The future of civilian dual-use technologies will not be defined by innovators alone. Whether drones or AI software, these tools are already reshaping how adversaries threaten public safety and economic continuity. What is at stake is not just national security, but the resilience of infrastructure that supports daily life.

The Crucial Role of Start-ups in National Defense

 Civilian-origin technologies are now driving the next wave of defense capability. From FPV drones to AI surveillance tools, some of the most disruptive military applications today are emerging not from traditional defense primes but from commercial markets, often developed by start-ups with no military background.

A coordinated international framework is urgently needed, one that does not just support innovation and infrastructure protection but actively integrates civilian tech into defense planning. This means lowering the barriers for experts and start-ups to meaningfully contribute alongside legacy contractors. The United Kingdom’s recent Defence Review hinted at this shift, recognising that smaller firms are vital to national resilience, particularly when civilian infrastructure is under threat.

What is truly needed is a NATO-wide or broader allied framework that enables cross-border collaboration, streamlines regulation, and opens up procurement pathways.

Today, many start-ups working at the intersection of security and technology face steep hurdles: limited access to capital, opaque compliance regimes, and procurement processes designed around, and for, large incumbents. Yet by creating space for their innovation, we can modernize collective defense from the ground up, using the very same civilian tools that adversaries are already turning into weapons.

A coordinated international framework is urgently needed, one that not only supports innovation and infrastructure protection but also lowers barriers to experts and start-ups to contribute more meaningfully alongside traditional defense primes. The UK’s recent Defence Review hinted at this shift, recognizing the value smaller firms bring to national resilience. It is time to take similar action at home.

Harry Geisler is the CEO of YAVA.

How Civilian Dual-Use Technologies Are Reshaping Global Security Policies was originally published on Global Security Review.

An American submarine also fired thirty Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) against surface infrastructure targets at Isfahan. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine described it, the entire operation was a complex timed maneuver requiring exact synchronization across multiple platforms in a narrow piece of airspace.

American deception tactics contributed to surprise as neither Iraqi fighters nor their surface-to-air missile defenses attempted to interdict the American bombers and their supporting fighter aircraft, all of which returned safely.

According to General Caine, Operation Midnight Hammer involved more than 125 aircraft, including the seven B2 stealth bombers, numerous fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, and dozens of refueling tankers. Some 75 precision-guided munitions were used in Midnight Hammer, including fourteen GBU-57 MOPs, which were used for the first time in combat.

The operational excellence of Midnight Hammer doubtless constituted a setback to Iran’s nuclear enrichment programs, although exactly how much of a setback remains to be determined.  Battle damage assessment is dependent on overhead photography unless and until further information is obtained from intelligence sources near or at the affected sites.

There also remained unsettled issues relative to American and allied strategy going forward. The Trump administration’s declaratory policy wants to draw a line between going to war with Iran, on one hand, and neutralizing its nuclear capabilities and potential, on the other.  This is a fine line to draw and Iran response, and follow-on condemnations, suggest they see the American position as a distinction without a difference.

Ater the strikes, President Trump indicated that Iran should come to the diplomatic table and negotiate the status of its nuclear future. Iran rejected further negotiations. This left the American and Israeli defense communities to await whatever diplomatic or military response the Iranians offered, including possible military attacks against American forces deployed in the Middle East.

Based on experience, Iran would likely respond with continuing missile strikes against Israel and asymmetrical warfare against the United States. With regard to the latter, Iran’s options included: (1) disrupting the flow of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz; (2) committing cyberattacks against American military or societal targets; (3) committing missile or insurgent attacks against American military personnel in Iraq or elsewhere in the region; (4) supporting protest demonstrations or terrorism in the American homeland, perhaps making use of prepositioned cells made up of illegal aliens; and/or (5) encouraging Iranian proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen to further harass American, Israeli, and allied interests.

Thus far, Iran limited its response to employing a small number of missiles against Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, even giving the Americans advance warning of the strike. For the Trump administration, this is the best possible outcome. Already, imagery intelligence suggests Iran is digging out its capabilities at Fordow and Esfahan. What the future may hold is uncertain. Whether Iran is simply buying time and learning lessons for future success or whether the regime truly desires peace is up in the air.

Future options for Iran have their positives and negatives. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz would harm Iran’s own economy, which needs the infusion of cash from oil sales to China.

Cyberattacks are a low-risk, low-cost option that may appeal to Iran in the near term, but they present a more serious potential threat to civilian targets compared to more heavily defended military ones. They will also draw severe reprisals from very competent American and Israeli cyber forces.

Additional attacks against American military personnel and facilities in Iraq are an option, as are missile or unconventional warfare against other regional states hosting American military bases. However, this path was not successful the first time.

Support for antiwar demonstrations or outright terrorism in the American homeland, including “lone wolf” terrorists recruited online, are still a possibility. New stories of Iranian illegal aliens arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are almost a daily occurrence.

As for Iranian proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah are on the ropes, momentarily, due to prior engagements with Israel, but the Houthis declared their intention to plus-up their disruptions of commerce in the Red Sea in the wake of Midnight Hammer. Whether this is possible is yet to be seen.

With respect to Iran’s future nuclear options and American responses, they may proceed in one of three ways: (1) a continuing “whack-a-mole” competition in which Iran continues surreptitious enrichment and the US and Israel continue to monitor its progress and, if necessary, repeat Midnight Hammer, or worse; (2) Iran undergoes a change of regime due to domestic opposition, leaving uncertain for a time exactly who is in charge and who controls the supplies of enriched uranium and nuclear infrastructure, never mind the armed forces and security police; or (3) Iran agrees to negotiate with the US and representatives of the international community another deal to limit its stockpiles of fissile material and its levels of enrichment.

These are possible options, but by no means the only options. Iran may pursue an unexpected path in an effort to outthink the United States and Israel. Whatever the future holds, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must keep a close eye on a regime that is built on destroying both countries. Hope is critical to human perseverance, but it is not a strategy.

Dr. Stephen Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State university, Brandywine. He is currently a senior fellow with the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Midnight Hammer and After was originally published on Global Security Review.

Turkey provides advanced military equipment to Pakistan and financial support when necessary. The success of Turkey’s Bayraktar drones in Ukraine are but one example of Turkey’s push to build a technologically sophisticated military force.

Greece, however, is focused on domestic programs and is developing a military capable of effectively deterring Turkey, should the desire to seize further Greek territory arise. Greeks are complacent and too willing to view membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a guarantee against Turkish aggression.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a diplomatic visit to Cyprus on June 15, 2025. This was a fortuitous visit because India has long dealt with the kind of challenges Turkey poses to Greece. The country has also undertaken an effort to modernize its forces, which offers lessons for Greece.

The United States, China, Russia, Germany, and India accounted for 60 percent of the world’s total military spending, with their total expenditure amounting to $1.6 trillion. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) most recent data highlights that India is consistently investing more in defense, as security issues increasingly dominate national priorities.

India is among the top five military spenders in the world, according to new SIPRI data. India’s defense spending increased by 1.6 percent in 2024, reaching $86.1 billion, making it the fifth largest military power in the world.

India’s first domestically produced hydrogen-powered drones are ready for use. Sharad Shah, Managing Director of Paras Defense Space Technologies, says his company is able to support India’s immediate security needs following the recent attacks. And just as India was preparing to launch deadly strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan, Paras announced a strategic joint venture with Haven Drowns in Israel, a US-based global company recognized for its autonomous, hydrogen-powered, and mission-specific drones.

The joint venture with Haven Drones will create a new capability in India for the design, manufacture, and supply of next generation drone systems tailored to India’s defense and internal security. These drones serve long-term plans to address global crises.

Paras is a defense engineering company specializing in advanced cutting-edge optical systems, optoelectronic systems, and defense solutions—not originally a drone manufacturer. The drones that emerged from this Indian-Israeli collaboration were tested on the highly volatile border of Israel. What makes them a game changer for India is their resilience and autonomy. These are hydrogen-powered unmanned aircraft that can stay in the air five times longer than current systems and are virtually silent, making them ideal for round-the-clock surveillance. One model can hover 500 meters above the ground, maintaining continuous surveillance of vast areas.

The recent escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan in the Pahalgam region of Kashmir underlines a harsh reality; persistent surveillance and rapid response are no longer optional—they are urgent. Paras is focused on providing real-time intelligence and countermeasures through surveillance technologies that can be deployed without delay and is working with India’s Ministry of Defense to ensure border security.

Both India and Greece must give maximum effort to protect their borders with state-of-the-art drones that can both prevent entry of illegal aliens and detect enemy movements. Greece can benefit greatly from drones in the Evros, which borders Turkey by land and sea. India has similar challenges in the Kashmir region, which borders Pakistan, and in Arunachal Pradesh, which China illegally claims by calling it South Tibet. These common challenges make India a natural partner.

India’s defense sector has experienced strong growth in recent years, driven by the government’s strong emphasis on innovation and increased defense spending. Rising border tensions and global geopolitical challenges spurred both domestic and international orders of Indian defense hardware, demonstrating increased confidence in the capabilities of Indian defense manufacturers.

The domestic defense industry grew to Rs 1.27 lakh crore (over $18 billion) in 2024, registering a remarkable growth of 174 percent since 2015. This impressive growth is supported by government efforts along with foreign military sales that include more than 17,000 items, which encourages domestic production for the international market.

It is time for Greece to start developing its own heavy industry sector and to stop relying on tourism as its source of revenue. In the 1980s, Greece even stopped making automobiles and started depending on loans from European organizations. Given Greece’s central location as the buffer between Europe and the Middle East, it is time to start investing in its own domestic arms manufacturing industry which is exactly what the “Made in India” movement is all about.

Of course, Greece does not have a domestic arms industry, but it understands the complexity of the simultaneous crises that impact the country. It is because of worsening conditions that the Greek Air Force is strengthening air defenses on Crete.

There is, however, positive news. Minister for National Defense Nikos Dendias proposed the creation of a defense dome, Achilles’ Shield, for the country. This effort is already underway as part of the Agenda 2030 effort. This follows the approval of the New Force Structure and the 12-year Armament Program by parliament and the Kysea. These efforts are a good start.

If Greece follows India’s example and invests in an indigenous arms industry that serves both Greece’s needs and an international market, the endeavor can prove successful. Restoring domestic industrial production is also an important undertaking for a country that has largely seen its domestic manufacturing industry perish. Greece has too long rested on its laurels while Turkey modernized its military and grew its domestic defense industry. Taking the positive elements of India’s efforts and avoiding their mistakes can serve as a path forward for Greece.

Dimitra Staikou is a Greek lawyer who works as a journalist writing about human rights violations in South Asia. She works for Greece’s biggest newspaper, Skai.gr, and Huffpost.Gr, as well as international distinguished news sites such as Modern Diplomacy and Global Research. 

The Future of War Is Coming from India to Greece was originally published on Global Security Review.

Engineering & Intelligence Combined
What began in 2009 with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s monitoring of Iran’s Fordow site evolved into a cutting-edge capability. The 30,000‑lb GBU‑57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) was precisely engineered—tested hundreds of times and customized in fuse timing and impact parameters—to penetrate deeply buried facilities

Strategic Collaboration & Planning
This achievement isn’t just about hardware. It reflects 15 years of close collaboration between military planners, intelligence analysts, and industry leaders—including Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and the Air Force’s Quick Reaction Capability program

Execution with Precision
On June 22, B‑2 stealth bombers launched Operation “Midnight Hammer,” striking Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan sites with surgical accuracy. The MOP penetrated as planned—leaving minimal surface signatures while delivering deep destruction

What This Means for National Security
This operation showcases how sustained investment in R&D, intelligence integration, and interagency coordination can yield mission-defining capabilities. It exemplifies the strategic patience and partnership necessary for complex, high-stakes operations.

Key Takeaways for Defense & Tech Leaders:

1. Vision Meets Execution – Long-term defense projects require a clear vision, persistent funding, and cross-disciplinary alignment.
2. Testing & Validation – MOP’s success was no accident—it was the result of rigorous modeling, simulation, and live testing.
3. Partnership Power – Defense agencies, military services, and industry must collaborate seamlessly over years to deploy such capabilities.
4. Strategic Deterrence – Precision technologies like the MOP expand strategic options, offering alternatives to broader or more escalatory responses.

As our world grows more complex, this operation demonstrates that when foresight, perseverance, and technological excellence coalesce, they can deliver decisive outcomes.

Let’s discuss: How can lessons from this mission inform future innovation in defense tech and strategic deterrence?

15 Years in the Making: U.S. Precision Strike on Iran’s Fortified Nuclear Site  was originally published on Global Security Review.

Topics include:

• China’s military space doctrine
• Counterspace threats from kinetic to cyber
• The limits of traditional deterrence theory
• Strategic recommendations for U.S. space policy

Real Space Strategy Live with Christopher Stone: Deterring Chinese Aggression in Space was originally published on Global Security Review.

One of the cornerstones of this modernization is the development of the B-21 Raider, the nation’s first sixth-generation aircraft and second stealth bomber. Poised to replace the B-1 and B-2 bomber fleets, the B-21 embodies the pinnacle of airpower, offering dual-use capabilities and unparalleled lethality. Currently, the B-21 is in its flight test phase, and with multiple aircraft progressing through the assembly line, the B-21 program is largely on schedule and within budget, a testament to its efficient development. Once deployed, this capability will present a significant challenge to potential adversaries and strengthen America’s capacity to project power and effectively threaten vital enemy targets. Low observable stealth and other on-board technologies can ensure successful penetration and retaliation, placing high-value targets at risk in any cost-imposing deterrence strategy, even against the strongest defenses. This threat, along with the fear instilled by the B-21, will certainly cause any aggressor to reconsider attacking the United States or its allies. While the Air Force is currently funded to buy 100 B-21 bombers, the US Strategic Command commander recently testified that 145 units are needed “to cope with the increased threats to U.S. security.”

Complementing the B-21 and B-52 is the nuclear-tipped Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) missile. Designed to replace the 40-year-old nuclear-armed Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) currently deployed on the B-52, the LRSO is a crucial component of the air leg of the nuclear triad. Impressively, the LRSO program is presently on track regarding schedule and budget, which is a welcome anomaly in major defense acquisitions. Its success is further highlighted by three successful flight tests in 2025 alone, demonstrating its maturity and readiness. The critical question, however, remains: how many LRSO missiles does the nation truly need to maintain a robust deterrent? This calculus involves intricate geopolitical considerations, technological advancements, and the evolving threat landscape. As of 2023, the Air Force plans to procure 1,087 missiles, with some 67 to be expended during the development phase.

Across the Atlantic, the NATO nuclear deterrent is undergoing its own transformation, centered on the F-35 fighter jet and the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb. All planned units of the B61-12 have been produced, and the F-35 has achieved certification for nuclear operations. While several European allies have already certified their F-35 jets for this crucial mission, others are still awaiting delivery of their aircraft or are in the process of certification. This phased integration underscores the collaborative nature of NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements and the ongoing commitment to collective security. The F-35 is a nimble, adaptable, high-performance multirole fighter combining stealth, sensor fusion, and extraordinary situational awareness, enhancing the lethality of NATO’s nuclear deterrent capability.

The venerable senior citizen B-52H Stratofortress, a workhorse of the bomber fleet, is also receiving a suite of vital upgrades. These enhancements include new engines, radar systems, and upgraded nuclear communications systems.  While progress is being made on these upgrades, they are encountering higher costs and longer timelines than initially projected. Nevertheless, the program is not “off the rails” and remains a critical effort to extend this enduring platform’s operational life and capabilities. When complete, the B-52J will be a more fuel-efficient, reliable, modern, and better-integrated platform going into the second half of the 21^st century. Should the B-52J modernization effort be overly delayed or cancelled, it will likely be replaced with additional B-21 bombers.

Finally, the Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) program represents a monumental undertaking. Beyond merely replacing the now 50-year-old Minuteman III missile, Sentinel involves a complete overhaul of the vast infrastructure spanning five missile fields. Following a Nunn-McCurdy recertification last year, all three stages of the missile, including the post-boost section, have undergone successful testing. The next crucial steps include laying some 7,000 miles of fiber optic cables across five states to establish robust command and control capabilities for the deployed weapons. A significant cost driver that contributed to the Nunn-McCurdy breach was the escalating cost of rebuilding the individual launch facilities. General Gebara reminded the audience that with 450 launch facilities (LF), any growth or cost increases in one LF can be multiplied by 450. Therefore, a $1 million increase in the design, construction, or reconditioning of one LF equates to adding half a billion dollars to the program, highlighting the scale and complexity of this vital modernization effort. General Bussiere, commander of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command, describes the Sentinel ICBM project as “the largest works project ever taken in fifty years [likely] since Eisenhower’s interstate program.”

The birth of the United States Air Force coincided with the dawn of the nuclear age and the rapid escalation of the Cold War. Nuclear deterrence quickly became a central and defining mission, profoundly shaping USAF structure, development, and doctrine throughout the Cold War and beyond. In today’s complex era of great power competition, the USAF is, as it should be, deeply committed to modernizing and revitalizing its nuclear deterrent. While programs like the LRSO and B-21 demonstrate impressive progress, others, such as the B-52 upgrades and Sentinel ICBM, face inherent challenges. These efforts, though costly and complex, are essential to maintaining a credible and effective deterrent in a dynamic global environment, ensuring national security for decades to come. This must be America’s number one priority!

As the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar Bradley once affirmed, as a believer in humanity, he deplored the use of the atomic bomb; however, as a soldier, he respected it. The United States should be prepared to utilize the full psychological and military impact of the bomb to prevent a war and, if attacked, to win the war. He was right in October 1949, and his sentiment remains valid today; the Air Force must ensure that its segment of the strategic nuclear triad is prepared to deter war well into the century.

Col. Curtis McGiffin (US Air Force, Ret.) is Vice President for Education of the National Institute for Deterrence Studies and a visiting professor at Missouri State University’s School of Defense and Strategic Studies. He has over 30 years of total USAF service. The views expressed are his own.

The Air Force’s Nuclear Deterrent: Modernization in Progress was originally published on Global Security Review.

Shifting to upgrading existing airframes with advanced technology rather than developing entirely new 6th-generation aircraft could offer significant long-term benefits. This approach results in substantial cost savings by avoiding the massive research and development expenses associated with new platforms while leveraging existing maintenance infrastructure. Additionally, integrating advanced technologies into proven airframes allows for faster deployment, reducing development cycles from decades to just a few years. Reliability would also improve, as these upgraded aircraft are built on battle-tested designs, avoiding the risks of unproven platforms and costly performance shortfalls.

Another key advantage is the ability to adopt modular and open-architecture upgrades, which enable rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI), sensor fusion, hypersonic weapons, and advanced stealth coatings without requiring entirely new aircraft designs. This incremental innovation approach ensures continuous modernization without the financial and operational burdens of a generational shift. Furthermore, sustaining production of existing airframes stabilizes the industrial base and supply chain, preserving skilled labor and reducing reliance on experimental manufacturing techniques. However, this approach does come with trade-offs.

While upgraded airframes can incorporate many next-generation technologies, they may struggle to compete with emerging peer threats, such as China’s J-20B and a future J-31, which are designed from the ground up with advanced stealth and next-generation propulsion. Despite these limitations, prioritizing enhancements to proven aircraft, while strategically investing in select next-generation platforms, could provide a cost-effective, lower-risk approach to maintaining American air superiority in the evolving global security landscape.

For example, the estimated cost per F-15EX Eagle II is $87.9 million per unit. However, the total procurement cost, including development, support, and spares, can push the price per aircraft to around $117 million. At first glance, this makes the F-15EX slightly more expensive than the F-35A ($82.5 million) but cheaper in terms of long-term sustainment and operational costs, as it leverages existing F-15 infrastructure.

Leveraging emerging technology to enhance existing military capabilities is a cost-effective strategy for extending platform lifecycles, improving combat effectiveness, and increasing survivability. AI and autonomy integration, such as AI copilots for fighter jets and swarm unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), enhance decision-making and reduce risks for human operators. Upgrading legacy aircraft and naval platforms with hypersonic weapons significantly expands strike ranges and lethality, while applying stealth coatings and advanced electronic warfare systems enhances survivability by reducing detectability and countering modern threats. Cybersecurity and network-centric warfare advancements, including real-time data-sharing and AI-driven analysis, improve battlefield coordination across multiple domains, ensuring more effective mission execution.

Meanwhile, integrating directed-energy weapons, such as high-energy lasers on ships and vehicles, provides cost-effective, high-precision air and missile defense without expending traditional munitions. Ground combat platforms, including M1A2 Abrams tanks and infantry systems, are also benefiting from active protection systems and AI-powered targeting, significantly improving survivability and lethality. In space and intelligence, reconnaissance satellites with AI-driven threat detection and persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) drones ensure superior situational awareness. By applying AI, hypersonics, stealth, electronic warfare, and directed energy to proven platforms, the US can modernize its forces without the extreme costs and risks of developing entirely new systems, ensuring long-term military superiority while maintaining fiscal responsibility.

This strategy allows the United States to maintain its military superiority over China’s rapidly expanding and modernizing forces by prioritizing technological advancements over costly new platform development. By integrating AI, hypersonics, stealth, electronic warfare, and directed energy into existing platforms, the US can rapidly upgrade combat capabilities without the lengthy and expensive process of designing entirely new aircraft, ships, and ground systems. This ensures that American forces remain combat-ready and adaptable while China continues to build up its military infrastructure.

One key advantage is speed and efficiency—modernizing proven platforms allows the US to deploy cutting-edge technologies much faster than China, which is still refining its next-generation aircraft, naval forces, and missile systems. Upgrading legacy airframes like the F-15EX and B-52J with hypersonic weapons, enhancing stealth with radar-absorbent materials, and improving real-time battlefield awareness with AI-driven sensor fusion ensure that American forces can strike faster, detect threats sooner, and operate with superior coordination.

Additionally, network-centric warfare improvements, such as joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) and real-time data-sharing, enhance multi-domain operations, allowing the US to maintain an intelligence and decision-making advantage over China’s military.

Survivability is another critical factor. By integrating active protection systems into tanks, directed-energy weapons into naval ships, and AI-driven electronic warfare suites into aircraft, US forces can better counter China’s advanced missile threats, cyber warfare tactics, and mass drone swarms. Additionally, maintaining a robust industrial base through upgrades to existing platforms ensures that production remains scalable and sustainable, unlike China’s military, which relies heavily on state-controlled production with limited battlefield testing of new systems.

By leveraging emerging technologies in a modular, cost-effective manner, the US can remain ahead of China’s growing military without the financial and operational burdens of continuously developing entirely new systems. This strategy ensures that American forces remain agile, lethal, and technologically superior, capable of deterring war and, if necessary, achieving decisive victories in any operational environment.

Joshua Thibert is a Senior Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies (NIDS) and doctoral student at Missouri State University. His extensive academic and practitioner experience spans strategic intelligence, multiple domains within defense and strategic studies, and critical infrastructure protection. Joshua currently resides in Columbus, Ohio.

Maintaining American Military Primacy Without Breaking the Bank was originally published on Global Security Review.

Focusing on information operations is critical. Drones, for example, use artificial intelligence capabilities, as do defensive systems. However, conflict between near-peer adversaries and competitors is still unlikely as gray zone and hybrid conflict are the dominant avenues for competition. With the information environment transcending all domains of warfare, artificial intelligence capabilities become the go-to capability to ensure and maintain information advantage.

China’s AI-enhanced information operations are becoming increasingly sophisticated. For example, the Chinese advanced persistent threat actor Spamouflage Dragon uses generative AI to create online personas to influence public opinion. China and its proxy companies seek to develop or compete for AI supremacy within the information environment.

Of course, China will use anything within its arsenal to shape strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war to its advantage, expand its influence, and create an ecosystem that is dependent on its technologies. For example, Baidu, known as the “Google of China,” invested billions into AI capabilities, creating the proprietary ERNIE model, which has been trained on billions of parameters, increasing the output’s quality and complexity.

However, China is also leveraging open-source AI models to shape the information environment. With the recent release of open-source large language models such as DeepSeek and Qwen, Chinese-linked subsidiaries, High-Flyer and Alibaba Group created a way to expand their influence, revise history, and likely create a dependent ecosystem for target countries. Unlike the much more expensive ChatGPT, for which the more basic model is free, China’s investment in generative AI models is free for the public and even surpasses ChatGPT’s in some respects.

There is a debate about how China’s proxy state companies were able to create these advanced models without US-based critical components. China allegedly did not have access to the advanced critical Nvidia chips for which most AI models are dependent. China seems to have created generative models just as suitable or even better than that of ChatGPT, but allegedly at a fraction of the cost and free of charge to the public. The US limited Nvidia chip exports to China, a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. Still, the accusation is that the Chinese subsidiary leased or bought the more advanced Nvidia chips from Singapore, circumventing restrictions, and used ChatGPT to train its model.

Regardless of how China secured these critical technologies, the cat is indeed out of the bag. China has shown that it has the capability to develop new and emerging AI technologies. From the capabilities already built, it now has a baseline to create even more capabilities to develop its own AI chip ecosystem. With such capabilities, China will become more active within the information environment with the help of AI capabilities, and its motives are far from benevolent.

Why is the Chinese model free? China has several motives, but it is likely in hopes that data and information across the globe are the price tag for using the model while lessening a dependency on Western technologies and becoming a global leader in AI by 2030. Whatever data is obtained by the United States is icing on the cake. The West is not the primary target audience. Both models have servers in Singapore and China, where information is likely subject to Chinese laws, and terms and conditions are meaningless.

The Chinese will use AI technologies to gain an advantage in the information environment and seek to expand influence by creating an ecosystem for which other countries are dependent on their models. The incentive is to give countries this technology to foster dependency. The idea is similar to China’s debt-trap diplomacy—the Belt and Road Initiative. While ChatGPT’s basic model is free, China seeks to develop better models at a cheaper price to serve as leverage over countries that cannot afford the higher-end US-based models.

The United States is taking the right approach to maintaining its information advantage through AI development and investment. The billions pouring into creating AI data centers will play an important role in ensuring the United States has the edge in AI.

These data centers remain critical for identifying and countering any malign information operations against the United States, its partners, and its allies. When Iran attempted to influence the 2024 presidential election using the generative model GPT, OpenAI detected and shut it down. Without this expansive investment in AI data centers that keep information within the letter of US law and oversight, these interventions would be out of reach, and information operations may be even more challenging to detect.

However, this approach is insufficient without incorporating artificial Intelligence into all aspects of military operations. The DoD uses artificial intelligence within some branches, but given the expansive nature of AI, this is not enough. AI is expected to touch nearly all aspects of military operations, especially information operations, and may not have time to wait for its major AI initiative, Project Maven, to fully develop.

Some military scholars have called something like this a revolution in military affairs, but perhaps, given the impact of war, it could be classified as such. The concept is somewhat antiquated and outdated without some context, but it remains the best way to describe what should take place within the DoD. The foundation is already in place through the conceptual framework of multidomain operations.

Artificial capabilities are widely available through graphical user interfaces in deployable, ready-to-use form, such as ChatGPT or even internal large language models. The joint force should use these capabilities to the broadest extent possible. If anything, artificial intelligence, including large language models, will make joint and combined forces more lethal and accurate as they counter Chinese efforts within the information environment.

The DoD must adopt incentives for service members to understand the capabilities of AI and incorporate them in all training environments. These incentives can include bonuses for taking AI-driven courses. The DoD can also increase awareness and accessibility of AI courses on its education platforms which now have a paucity of artificial intelligence courses.

The DoD must also improve the training environment. With proprietary or off-the-shelf software, the DoD can incorporate AI offensive and defensive platforms within all training and mission-critical tasks. Even simply assisting with identifying generative outputs, e.g., deepfakes, will counter Chinese influence within the information environment, especially during hybrid conflict. Furthermore, military doctrine should recognize the importance of AI, especially information operations, with an emphasis on psychological operations.

While AI investment is critical to countering Chinese influence within the information environment, the only way to truly embrace multidomain operations is to ensure service members have the AI technical competency necessary to maneuver within the information environment deterring Chinese aggression.

US Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew J. Fecteau is a PhD researcher at King’s College London studying how artificial Intelligence will impact conflict. He can be reached at matthew.fecteau.alumni@armywarcollege.edu.

China’s AI-Driven Information Operations Are Here: The US Needs an AI RMA was originally published on Global Security Review.

Hypersonic weapons, capable of exceeding Mach 5 with unpredictable flight paths, shatter the bedrock principles of conventional missile defense. Their ability to glide and maneuver within the atmosphere allows them to evade radar detection and interceptor systems, compressing warning times to mere minutes. This drastic reduction in reaction time amplifies the risk of miscalculations and accidental escalation, particularly in moments of crisis.

The global balance of power is being fundamentally altered, not merely adjusted, by the aggressive pursuit of maneuverable hypersonic weapon capabilities. China’s DF-17 hypersonic missile, coupled with its reported testing of a fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) with a hypersonic payload, demonstrates a clear intent to achieve global strike capabilities with minimal warning. Russia’s deployment of the Avangard HGV on its SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missiles and the operational status of the Zircon hypersonic anti-ship missile further highlight the growing proliferation of these advanced weapons. North Korea’s claim of successful hypersonic missile tests, while requiring verification, signal a potential integration of these weapons into its theater nuclear strategy, adding another layer of complexity to regional security.

The inherent capacity of maneuverable hypersonic weapons to render existing missile defense systems obsolete signifies not just a technological leap, but a deliberate dismantling of established strategic certainties. The unpredictability of their flight paths and the compression of warning times do not just complicate defense planning; they erode the very foundation of strategic stability, where deterrence relies on the certainty of retaliation. The potential for these weapons to carry both conventional and nuclear payloads does not just increase their versatility; it blurs the lines between conventional and nuclear conflict, creating a perilous ambiguity that heightens the risk of miscalculation.

The ability to strike targets with minimal warning does not just enhance offensive capabilities; it creates a coercive tool, enabling states to exert pressure and achieve strategic objectives without resorting to large-scale conventional warfare. The potential for hypersonic weapons to be deployed in a first-strike role does not just raise concerns about escalation; it fundamentally alters the calculus of deterrence, where the threat of retaliation may no longer be sufficient to prevent aggression.

To counter this burgeoning vulnerability, the United States must not merely react, but fundamentally redefine its strategic posture, acknowledging that piecemeal technological solutions are insufficient to address the profound shift hypersonic weapons impose on the security landscape. The rapid development of the glide phase interceptor (GPI) and space-based tracking systems is not just about enhancing missile defense; it is about restoring a sense of strategic stability, reassuring allies and deterring potential adversaries. The expansion of conventional hypersonic programs, such as the AGM-183 ARRW, conventional prompt strike, and the long-range hypersonic weapon, is not just about developing counterforce capabilities; it is about demonstrating a commitment to maintaining a credible deterrent, signaling to potential adversaries that aggression will be met with a swift and decisive response. The integration of hypersonic weapons into existing military doctrines does not just require tactical adjustments; it demands a fundamental reevaluation of strategic thinking, adapting to a new era of high-speed warfare.

The international community’s response to hypersonic weapons must not be limited to national defense initiatives; it must include a concerted effort to promote arms control and transparency. The absence of clear international norms and regulations regarding hypersonic weapons does not just create uncertainty; it fosters a climate of strategic competition, where states are incentivized to develop and deploy these weapons without restraint. The development of transparency and confidence-building measures is not just about reducing the risk of miscalculation; it is about building a foundation for strategic stability, where states can engage in dialogue and cooperation to mitigate the risks posed by these advanced weapons.

Hypersonic weapons represent a paradigm shift in military technology, fundamentally questioning if the world is entering a new era of vulnerability, undermining the foundations of traditional missile defense and reshaping the strategic landscape. Addressing this challenge requires a comprehensive approach that combines technological innovation, strategic adaptation, and international cooperation. Only through a concerted effort can the international community hope to mitigate the risks posed by hypersonic weapons and ensure a more stable and secure future.

Brandon Toliver, PhD, serves on the A4 staff of Headquarters Air Force. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States government, the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or the United States Space Force.

Hypersonic Weapons: Are We Entering a New Era of Vulnerability? was originally published on Global Security Review.

This is no diplomatic disagreement, it’s a brewing storm cloaked in trade deals and technology theft. Viewed through the unforgiving lens of a new Cold War, their discussion exposes the economic fault lines, ballooning trade deficits, strategic supply chain vulnerabilities, and the silent hemorrhaging of American innovation through intellectual property theft. As they unearth Cold War-era playbooks and contrast them with China’s modern hybrid strategies, a chilling pattern emerges: the past isn’t repeating, it’s evolving.

They delve to the heart of deterrence, revealing a precarious global balance that demands more than policy; it demands resolve. If America misreads the moment, it may sleepwalk into strategic irrelevance.

Watch

Get Involved with more NIDS Services: https://thinkdeterrence.com/ Deterrence Education at NIDS https://thinkdeterrence.com/deterrence-education/   Like and follow us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thinkdeterrence  X.com: https://x.com/thinkdeterrence  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyGa4dcPqONWzjmbuZMOBHQ  Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/NIDSthinkdeterrence  Global Security Review: https://globalsecurityreview.com/  Our Free Events: https://thinkdeterrence.com/events/

Navigating the US-China Relationship: Myths and Realities was originally published on Global Security Review.

Secretary Hegseth, a veteran with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, emerged from a military culture defined by counterinsurgency warfare, rapid technological adaptation, and constrained rules of engagement. His formative years were shaped by the leadership of prominent figures like General (Ret.) David Petraeus and General (Ret.) James Mattis, who emphasized adaptive leadership, decisive action, and strategic communication. The norms of that era often prioritized minimizing civilian casualties, leveraging asymmetric warfare, and coalition-based operations. Given this background, Hegseth’s emphasis on restoring a warrior ethos and projecting unyielding strength likely stems from his own military experiences and the influential leaders who shaped his perspective.

Hegseth’s message signals a deliberate shift away from the strategic ambiguity that may embolden adversaries. The emphasis on deterrence through strength suggests a belief that Russia’s nuclear brinkmanship, China’s rapid arsenal expansion, and North Korea’s unpredictability stem from a perception of American hesitancy. One might observe that the concept of strategic ambiguity, once hailed as a nuanced tool of deterrence, now appears as outdated as the punch-card computers that once calculated nuclear trajectories.

This shift reflects a growing concern about the credibility of extended deterrence and the need for more explicit signaling of American resolve. By modernizing the nuclear triad and reaffirming America’s willingness to use force, the Pentagon aims to reinstate fear as a core pillar of deterrence.

The emphasis on reviving the warrior ethos implies that nuclear deterrence must be as much about mindset as it is about capability. It is striking to note that the last time a Secretary of Defense emphasized a similar warrior ethos, the world was still reeling from the Cuban Missile Crisis, a stark reminder of the high stakes involved. The focus on a warfighting mentality suggests a move away from the bureaucratic approach that dominated nuclear policy in recent decades. It is a move toward a more operational and combat-focused posture.

The intent may be to move away from a risk-averse approach, ensuring that warfighters at all levels understand nuclear deterrence as an active, rather than passive, responsibility. This shift could result in more frequent readiness drills, a recalibration of nuclear employment thresholds, and strategic force posturing that prioritizes offensive capabilities over restraint.

China is projected to reach nuclear parity with the US by 2035, while Russia continues aggressive arsenal expansion and hybrid warfare tactics. Hegseth’s directive appears motivated by a desire to prevent a world where nuclear deterrence is no longer dictated by American supremacy. This shift away from the established norms of strategic restraint is a necessary adaptation to a multipolar world, or it could be a dangerous escalation that precipitates a new arms race.

There is an inherent tension between maintaining strategic dominance and fostering international stability. Modernization efforts—accelerated intercontinental ballistic missile production, hypersonic weapons, and a stronger nuclear-capable bomber fleet—align with an intent to sustain America’s dominant position before near-peer threats fully materialize.

The call to rebuild the military by rapidly fielding emerging technologies may suggest a strategic push toward AI tools that enable improved nuclear command and control, quantum-resistant encryption, and space-based early warning systems. The intent behind these investments appears twofold. First, there is a desire to ensure American nuclear forces cannot be neutralized by cyber, space, or electronic warfare. Second, there is a desire to establish deterrence dominance through superior technological integration before adversaries close the gap.

If this is a return to a bold, George S. Patton-style of leadership, where decisive action and unwavering resolve are paramount, it could also risk a dangerous overemphasis on military solutions at the expense of diplomacy. This approach raises crucial questions about the balance between technological innovation and strategic prudence.

Hegseth’s message reaffirms commitment to American allies, signaling that extended deterrence remains a central policy. The intent appears to be preempting concerns of American disengagement from NATO and Indo-Pacific security commitments while simultaneously warning adversaries, especially China, that American nuclear resolve is non-negotiable. Some may assume that a more aggressive posture inherently breeds instability, paradoxically, it could also create a more stable balance of power by clearly defining red lines and deterring potential aggression.

This strategy hinges on the assumption that adversaries will respond rationally to demonstrations of force. This could translate into increased nuclear deployments to allied territories; stronger trilateral deterrence initiatives between the US, UK, and Australia (AUKUS); and a renewed focus on NATO’s nuclear-sharing agreements to counter Russian regional threats.

Secretary Hegseth’s “Message to the Force” signals an intentional and urgent shift in US nuclear strategy—one motivated by a belief that deterrence is eroding and must be aggressively rebuilt. Whether through new weapons systems, a hardened warrior mindset, or the integration of cutting-edge technology, the modernization push under his tenure will likely define the next era of American nuclear policy.

Brandon Toliver, PhD, serves on the A4 staff of Headquarters Air Force. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States government, the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or the United States Space Force.

Hegseth’s Doctrine: A Rebirth and Redefinition of American Deterrence? was originally published on Global Security Review.

Hosted on YouTube, Rumble or RSS.com

YouTube	Rumble	RSS.com

Get Involved with more NIDS Services: https://thinkdeterrence.com/

Deterrence Education at NIDS https://thinkdeterrence.com/deterrence-education/

Like and follow us – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thinkdeterrence

X.com: https://x.com/thinkdeterrence

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyGa4dcPqONWzjmbuZMOBHQ

Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/NIDSthinkdeterrence

Global Security Review: https://globalsecurityreview.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/globalsecurityreview/

X.com: https://x.com/security_wonk

Our Free Events: https://thinkdeterrence.com/events/

Podcast – Future-Proofing National Security: We Can’t Just Wish for Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

Maritime ports authorize customs clearance and are involved in regulatory checks, ensuring compliance with national and international law. Ports perform most of these functions digitally. Maritime ports are now under serious threat of malicious cyberattacks that can disrupt and compromise port operations worldwide.

Industry is deeply interconnected, and a cyberattack on one major port can send shockwaves through global trade networks. Consider a scenario where a major port, responsible for handling millions of cargo containers, suddenly halts operations due to a cyberattack. Cranes freeze, logistics systems collapse, and cargo ships are left stranded at sea. This is not a hypothetical scenario; it is a real and escalating threat to global trade.

The maritime industry, long seen as the backbone of international commerce, now faces an urgent cybersecurity crisis. Ports are no longer just about cranes and cargo; they have evolved into digital ecosystems reliant on interconnected networks, automation, and artificial intelligence. As ports become smarter, they are also becoming more vulnerable. Cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting these vulnerabilities, causing financial losses, operational disruptions, and even national security risks.

Maritime cyberattacks are no longer rare occurrences, they are becoming alarmingly frequent. In 2023, a ransomware attack crippled more than 1,000 vessels by targeting a software provider used across the shipping industry. The attack forced the shipping industry to shut down its ShipManager system, affecting global supply chains. A year earlier, the Port of Lisbon suffered a cyberattack that took its website offline for days, with the ransomware group LockBit claiming responsibility and alleging that it had stolen financial reports, contracts, and ship logs.

In Germany, a 2022 cyberattack on two oil companies disrupted fuel shipments, forcing Shell to reroute supplies and exposing the vulnerabilities of critical maritime infrastructure. The 2017 NotPetya ransomware attack, which paralyzed Maersk and caused an estimated $300 million in damage, remains one of the most devastating cyberattacks in shipping history.

Ports are among the most attractive targets for cybercriminals. The motives behind these attacks vary as some hackers seek financial gain, while others aim to steal sensitive trade-related data, and some may even use cyberattacks as part of hybrid warfare.

The economic consequences are staggering, from ransom payments and insurance hikes to delays that can ripple across global supply chains. Beyond financial losses, cyber threats to ports pose serious security risks. For example, a well-coordinated cyberattack on a major port could disrupt military logistics, cripple trade networks, or even manipulate cargo data to facilitate smuggling and illicit trade.

Hackers carry the potential for unauthorized intrusion into ports’ digital networks and interrupt ports’ routine operation through malicious software attacks. The workforce involved in port management may be trapped into revealing sensitive data by clicking on malicious links. The hackers can also disrupt digital networks that regulate critical port infrastructure, such as cranes, pumps, and valves. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems can come under cyber threats disrupting routine functions. Nonstandard computing hardware like sensors, actuators, or appliances that transmit data from the network wirelessly are vulnerable to data theft.

Hackers can steal data such as cargo manifests, crew information, and financial records. They can also manipulate data, such as altering cargo manifests, or manipulate navigation systems. Hackers can also steal intellectual property, such as trade secrets or proprietary software.

Another pressing issue is supply-chain security. Ports rely on a complex web of third-party vendors for logistics, software, and cargo management. If one vendor is compromised, the entire port system could be at risk.

Hackers can also use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance means or to attack port infrastructure, such as damaging equipment or disrupting power supplies. Ports may be exposed to cyberattacks through third-party suppliers, such as logistics providers or maintenance contractors. Ports may be exposed to cyberattacks through cargo and containers, which may contain malicious devices or software.

Cybersecurity in the maritime sector is often treated as an afterthought. Many ports still operate with outdated software and weak security protocols, making them easy targets. Given the critical role of ports in the global economy, the widening cybersecurity gap is a growing challenge. Strengthening port security necessitates urgent regulatory mechanisms, some of which are proposed below.

Regulatory Mechanisms

To mitigate the growing cyber threat, ports should adopt internationally recognized cybersecurity frameworks. First, ports should adhere to the rules and protocols of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Maritime Cyber Risk Management Guidelines, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework, and ISO 27001 standards. Implementing these frameworks will help establish clear security protocols and ensure that ports are prepared to defend against cyberattacks.

Second, network security should be reinforced by segmenting information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems, preventing malware from spreading across critical infrastructure. Regular penetration testing and vulnerability assessments can further identify weak points before attackers do.

Third, investing in cybersecurity training for port workers is equally crucial. Many cyberattacks exploit human error—phishing e-mails, weak passwords, and social engineering attacks remain among the most common entry points for hackers. A well-trained workforce can serve as the first line of defense against these threats.

Fourth, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning for threat detection can enhance ports’ ability to identify cyber risks before they escalate into full-scale attacks. Artificial intelligence (AI)–led systems can monitor network activity in real time, flagging suspicious behavior and predicting potential breaches before they happen. In this regard, the strict security assessments of third-party vendors and blockchain-based cargo tracking can enhance transparency and reduce the risk of supply-chain cyberattacks.

Fifth, beyond prevention, ports should also be prepared to respond effectively to cyber incidents. For this, establishing cyber incident response teams (CIRT) can ensure that ports have trained professionals ready to mitigate and recover from cyberattacks swiftly.

Sixth, regular cyber drills and crisis simulations should be conducted to test response plans. This ensures that when an attack occurs, the damage is minimized, and recovery is swift.

Seventh, international collaboration to deal with these threats is essential. Governments, port authorities, and private stakeholders should work together to share intelligence, standardize security protocols, and invest in collective defense mechanisms.

Public-private partnerships can play a key role in funding advanced cybersecurity infrastructure, while international regulatory bodies like the IMO must enforce stricter cybersecurity mandates across the industry. Finally, as ports transition into smart ports, powered by the internet of things (IoT), AI, and automation, cybersecurity should be at the forefront of maritime security strategies. Emerging technologies like quantum computing and zero trust architecture will play a crucial role in strengthening digital defenses, but ports should remain vigilant. The very technologies designed to enhance security could also introduce new vulnerabilities if not properly managed.

Cybersecurity is no longer just a technical issue; it is a fundamental pillar of modern port management. If cybersecurity continues to be treated as an afterthought, the next major cyberattack could bring global trade to a standstill. Ports are the lifelines of the world economy, and securing them is not just about protecting data, it is about safeguarding the stability of international commerce and national security.

Maryyum Masood is working as a Research Officer & Associate Editor at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS) Islamabad. She is an MPhil scholar in the Department of Strategic Studies at the National Defense University (NDU) Islamabad.

Rizwana Abbasi is an Associate Professor of Security Studies at the National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, a non-resident Fellow of the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad, and a Visiting Fellow at the Central European University of Austria.

Cybersecurity Framework for Maritime Port Management was originally published on Global Security Review.

Informed by the works of Lieutenant General Tom D. Miller, particularly “The Defense Sustainment Industrial Base” and “Capability, Capacity, and Risk in Sustainment of Air Force Weapon Systems,” it is clear that the challenges and strategies surrounding maintenance of Air Force weapon systems are multifaceted. The first article highlights the foundational elements necessary for a robust defense sustainment industrial base, emphasizing the need for a resilient infrastructure. The second publication further develops this analysis, delving into the evolving landscape of capability, capacity, and risk management in the context of sustaining advanced weapon systems. Collectively, these works offer critical insights and recommendations on optimizing the sustainment process, ensuring readiness and effectiveness in a changing security landscape.

This passage highlights a significant juxtaposition of key themes present in the Secretary of Defense’s goals and Gen. Miller’s examination of Air Force sustainment challenges. To navigate these challenges effectively, specific focus must be placed on three pivotal areas: restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding the military, and reestablishing deterrence.

In the effort to restore the warrior ethos, the military needs skilled personnel, modern facilities, and a sustainable defense industrial base. Workforce retention and a shortage of technical expertise undeniably impact operational readiness. According to the Secretary of Defense’s mandate, there is a pressing need to “revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military.”

Miller’s analysis reveals that the sustainment workforce is facing severe challenges such as an aging workforce, a lack of recruitment, and significant technical expertise gaps. The Air Force Sustainment Center (AFSC) is currently experiencing a 30 percent shortage in experienced depot maintenance personnel. This shortfall adversely affects the maintenance and throughput of mission-critical aircraft. A 2022 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that workforce shortages at Air Logistics Complexes (ALCs) contribute to an average delay of 20 percent in aircraft depot maintenance cycles, diminishing operational readiness.

Transitioning from a counterterrorism focus to one that emphasizes great power competition necessitates a sustainment workforce capable of advanced manufacturing and software maintenance, but current training pipelines struggle to produce such expertise. The implications are stark; a degraded sustainment workforce directly undermines operational readiness, particularly in maintaining high-end platforms like the F-35, which are essential for effective deterrence.

In relation to rebuilding the military, the defense industrial base faces significant hurdles due to aging infrastructure, inefficient procurement processes, and inconsistent funding. Secretary Hegseth emphasizes the importance of this rebuilding process, stating the need to match threats with capabilities. Gen. Miller’s assessments indicate that the Air Force’s sustainment infrastructure is outdated and that funding for depot modernization is inconsistent. The average age of Air Force maintenance depots exceeds 60 years, with several facilities dating back to World War II. Supply-chain vulnerabilities also arise. Significant dependence on a sole supplier for 67 percent of critical spare parts for legacy aircraft creates potential crises during conflicts. Moreover, extended procurement cycles often delay readiness enhancements, averaging 8 to 10 years from requirement to fielding for sustainment modernization projects.

Thus, without rapid modernization of sustainment infrastructure and necessary acquisition reform, the Air Force will struggle to maintain aging fleets while simultaneously integrating essential next-generation capabilities for initiatives like joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) and agile combat employment (ACE).

Reestablishing deterrence requires a comprehensive assessment of readiness to ensure that sustainment capacity effectively aligns with the threats posed by nations such as China and Russia. As stated in the SECDEF mandates, deterrence must be reestablished through defense of the homeland and collaboration with allies. However, Miller’s 2022 assessment points out a disconnect between current sustainment funding models and the operational requirements of deterrence in contested environments. For instance, from 2012 to 2022, the readiness rates for the USAF fighter fleet plummeted from 75 to 57 percent, with sustainment backlogs contributing significantly to non-mission-capable status. Only 40 percent of American sustainment infrastructure is currently forward-positioned in the Indo-Pacific, which is crucial for countering aggressive actions from adversaries.

To counter these challenges and bolster national defense strategy, courses of action should be implemented. First, revitalizing the sustainment workforce through expanded training and technological improvements is essential. According to projected outcomes, this could reduce depot maintenance delays by 15 to 20 percent within five years while raising mission-capable rates for advanced platforms.

Second, prioritizing infrastructure and acquisition reform will require streamlining procurement processes and integrating industry best practices. This reform could lead to a reduction in aircraft downtime and enhance rapid repair capabilities essential for operating within geographic regions such as the Indo-Pacific. Finally, adopting a risk-based resource-allocation strategy aligned with high-threat mission areas can significantly strengthen deterrence, ultimately raising mission-capable rates of critical platforms.

By aligning sustainment actions with the objectives of the National Defense Strategy, the Air Force can demonstrate improved deterrence capabilities, build enduring advantages, and modernize its force. An immediate investment in revitalizing the sustainment workforce, modernizing depot infrastructure, and aligning resources with operational needs is imperative. A reformative approach to sustainment is not merely an operational necessity; it constitutes a vital aspect of maintaining peace through strength. Without these necessary adjustments, the Air Force risks facing severe mission degradation in high-threat scenarios, ultimately jeopardizing national defense.

Brandon Toliver, PhD, serves on the A4 staff of Headquarters Air Force. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States government, the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or the United States Space Force.

Achieving Peace Through Strength: A Sustainment Imperative was originally published on Global Security Review.

During the signing event, President Trump remarked, “On trade, I have decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them no more, no less. In other words, they charge the US a tax or tariff, and we will charge them the exact same tax or tariff, very simple.”

A strong economy is vital to national security. In addition to reliable access to energy, minerals, and capital, any great power fundamentally requires a resilient, production-oriented, economic infrastructure that ensures a comprehensive and adequate industrial base capable of producing most of the nation’s necessities.

Furthermore, America’s national debt exceeds $36 trillion, with a debt-to-GDP ratio surpassing 133 percent. In fiscal year 2024, the cost of servicing the debt’s interest surpassed America’s defense budget.

Americans place great importance on fairness and balance. The Declaration of Independence famously states that “all men are created equal” and advocates for equal treatment for all individuals, regardless of status or position. The Constitution establishes a framework that balances power among various branches of government, as outlined in James Madison’s Federalist 51.

Socrates once remarked, “If measure and symmetry are absent from any composition in any degree, ruin awaits both the ingredients and the composition…. Measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue the world over.” He was right.

President Trump seeks to implement tariff reciprocity towards America’s competitors in a fair, just, and balanced manner. Can this same principle be applied to his peace through strength deterrence approach? Yes, it can.

Dynamic parity is a nuclear deterrence strategy that deliberately achieves and maintains a contextually symmetrical balance of nuclear force capabilities, capacities, and composition in relation to the combined nuclear strength of China, North Korea, Russia, and possibly Iran. This strategy seeks to balance America’s nuclear deterrent force against the potentially collaborative arsenals of these adversaries, thereby enhancing deterrence, reassuring allies, and preserving strategic stability in a world lacking binding arms control agreements.

America is about 15 years into a 30-year effort to recapitalize its nuclear arsenal, which has a program of record that offers a one-for-one intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) swap, two fewer ballistic missile submarines, and a reduced bomb load capacity. The current program of record was designed for a world that no longer exists.

Even the Biden administration’s acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy acknowledged the need to explore “options for increasing future launcher capacity or adding more deployed warheads in land, sea, and air capabilities” to address the significant growth and variety of China’s nuclear arsenal. The 2023 Congressional Commission report on U.S. Strategic Posture stated that the current nuclear modernization program is “necessary, but not sufficient” for facing two nuclear peers: China and Russia.

Americans often assess the fairness of financial rewards and the distribution of costs, commonly reacting to perceived unfairness with feelings of hostility and responding with protest. Regarding economic, political, or national security issues, we are “wired to resist unfair treatment.” This sense of fairness and balance also extends to America’s defensive posture. A recent Reagan National Defense Forum Survey noted that 77 percent of voters were concerned that the national debt might force defense cuts, with 79 percent supporting increased defense spending, and 70 percent of those surveyed were concerned about “Russia launching a thermonuclear attack against the US.”

In this context, geopolitical fairness refers to the perceived evenhandedness among nations in a manner that mutually impacts interests. Meanwhile, geopolitical balance pertains to the distribution of perceived power between states in the international system. The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment noted that Russia possesses the largest, most diverse, and most modern nuclear weapons stockpile in the world. This infers that America remains inferior in aggregate nuclear weapon numbers and is trailing in modernization, which creates an imbalance.

Correcting long-standing imbalances in trade policy and military shortfalls is vital to the American conscience. Allowing trade deficits with economic competitors to persist without challenge is akin to unilateral disarmament. The US trade deficit for goods reached a record $1.2 trillion in 2024, while the treasury borrowed $2 trillion that same year. Ongoing deficits of this magnitude threaten domestic companies and jobs, putting negative pressure on GDP and the prosperity of individual Americans. Ensuring that America’s nuclear deterrent can counter the threats posed by its adversaries will safeguard citizens’ security and sovereignty, enabling prosperity.

President Trump’s new Trade and Tariff Reciprocity Policy, like the nuclear deterrence strategy of Dynamic Parity, places the burden of acceptable behavior on America’s competitors. They both empower America to act in the interest of fairness, aiming to achieve balance in both process and product. Geopolitical stability is not born of an America exploited economically or constrained militarily. This kind of weakness is not only provocative but also insulting.

Col. Curtis McGiffin (US Air Force, Ret.) is Vice President for Education of the National Institute for Deterrence Studies and a visiting professor at Missouri State University’s School of Defense and Strategic Studies. He has over 30 years of total USAF service. The views expressed are his own.

Trump’s Trade and Tariff Policy Benefits America’s Nuclear Deterrent was originally published on Global Security Review.

It is good to have a combat veteran as the new Secretary of Defense. It is also good to have someone who, while writing a book on the current state of the military, came to understand the difficulties service members face, why they choose not to resign or not re-enlist, and how hard it can be for some once they leave the service. That same research will also help you to eliminate the politicization that left the military hurting for recruits.

This understanding and experience will be helpful in correcting the course of the Department of Defense. Prioritizing warfighting capabilities and lethality over supporting the mission creep of bureaucracy is critical but antithetical to everything that is Washington, DC. The Pentagon was focused on budgets and bureaucratic infighting long before you arrived. The five-sided puzzle palace will fight back and has a long institutional memory.

Just remember, of all services and the department itself, only the US Air Force Airmen gave more money to Republicans than Democrats. There is at least one ray of hope.

For decades the military has had its combat forces slashed, bases closed or consolidated, and weapon systems and platforms reduced or retired—all while the Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, and Russians expanded their military capabilities and plotted the destruction of the international order Americans built. While the war on terror was lost by the very people who hate the fact that you are Secretary of Defense, you have an opportunity to right the ship before it is too late.

No doubt, you will receive more input on what you should do than you can possibly digest. Let me offer a quick list.

First, a sovereign state, by definition, controls its borders. That is a military function. Help President Trump secure the border. There is no such thing as acceptable illegal immigration.

Second, adopt the Weinberger Doctrine as your overriding strategy for the use of military force. You will never go wrong if you do.

Third, the military may be the best socialist system in the world, but it is time to overhaul the personnel system and bring it into the twenty-first century. The military is unique, but do not let that be an excuse.

Fourth, modernization and expansion of the nuclear arsenal must be your top spending priority. A bigger Army, conventional Navy, or conventional Air Force will not deter China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia; only a robust strategic and theater nuclear arsenal can achieve that objective.

Fifth, service members, particularly junior enlisted, have lived in toxic base housing for far too long. This problem should not make this list, but after two decades it has yet to be solved.

Sixth, remove the cancerous social and political activism that inundates the military. Nothing harms unity more than pitting servicemembers against one another because of their race, gender, or some other contrived distinction. Based on your initial actions, your efforts are already moving ahead.

Seventh, there is simply too much duplication across the services and within the services. Ensuring command opportunities should not lead to the creation of unneeded commands. The services are too small to be inefficient.

Eighth, expand the number of combatant ships, missile defense systems, and the combat air force. Neither the Navy nor the Air Force has the capability to wage a sustained campaign against a peer. Not only does the nation lack the delivery platforms, but it will go Winchester in a matter of days. Thus, every kind of weapon is also needed.

Ninth, take the time to reset the baseline and see what the military really needs to defeat the Axis of Autocracy. Is it drone swarms, missile technology, robots? Whatever the answer may be, it is unlikely exactly what we already have.

Finally, get very good at telling the American people why it is more important to spend tax dollars on the military than the entitlements they know and love. This is perhaps your biggest task. In 2024, the federal government took in $4.4 trillion and spent $4.6 trillion on entitlement programs alone. That is unsustainable. The federal government was never meant to take care of the health, retirement, and education of Americans. It was specifically tasked to defend the nation.

You have a big job ahead of you. Good luck. Americans want nothing more than your success. The safety of the country depends on it.

Michael Fincher is a Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Congratulations on Becoming the Secretary of Defense was originally published on Global Security Review.

Based on the latest EAR Report, these are the critical points on global security, upcoming events, and the ongoing discourse on nuclear deterrence, modernization, and geopolitical strategy for 2025.

Quotes of the Week

• Xi Jinping (China): “No one can stop the historical trend” of China’s “reunification” with Taiwan.”
• U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg (South Korea): Reaffirmed the U.S.-South Korean alliance amidst geopolitical tensions.
• DPRK Kim Jong Un: Committed to implementing the “toughest” anti-American policy while criticizing the U.S.-South Korea-Japan security partnership.
• Antony Blinken (U.S. Secretary of State): Highlighted Russia’s intentions to share advanced space technology with North Korea.
• NATO Official: Warned of unconventional Russian attacks causing substantial casualties.

Upcoming 2025 Seminar Events

1. January 10, 2025, 10:00 AM: Robert Soofer & Mark Massa on “The Case for Homeland Missile Defense.”
2. January 31, 2025, 10:00 AM: Shoshana Bryen & Ilan Berman on “Middle East Update and the Iranian Nuclear Threat.”
3. February 14, 2025, 10:00 AM: Stephen Blank & Mark Schneider on “Russian Intentions with Its Growing Nuclear Forces.”
4. February 28, 2025, 10:00 AM: Hon. Madelyn Creedon & Hon. Frank Miller on “Assessment and Update of the Posture Commission.”
5. March 14, 2025, 10:00 AM: Gordon Chang & Rick Fisher on “The Chinese Nuclear Threat & Implications for US Security.”

Nuclear Derangement Syndrome

• Criticism of nuclear deterrence is gaining momentum, focusing on framing nuclear weapons as both unnecessary and dangerous.
• The Union of Concerned Scientists highlights essays opposing nuclear modernization, which are countered with arguments emphasizing deterrence as essential for stability.
• The critique overlooks the strategic necessity of nuclear weapons in preventing large-scale conflicts and ensuring global security.

The Biden-Trump Arms Race

• Criticism: The Biden and Trump administrations’ claims of an arms race are exaggerated. They focus on necessary modernization within New START limits.
• Reality: Modernization efforts (Columbia submarines, Sentinel ICBMs, B21 bombers) align with treaty commitments, aiming for readiness by 2042.
• Key Concern: Rising nuclear capabilities of Russia and China surpass New START limits, demanding U.S. responses to maintain strategic balance.
• Counterarguments: Opponents argue modernization fuels an arms race, while proponents emphasize deterrence and technological edge against adversaries.

Download the full report.

ICBM EAR Report Jan, 3 2025 was originally published on Global Security Review.

Buff asserts that the US must invest heavily in full-spectrum military capabilities to deter adversaries. However, history shows that militarization alone often escalates tensions rather than resolving them. For instance, the Cuban Missile Crisis—a frequent example in escalation dominance arguments—was resolved through diplomacy, not military action.

President John F. Kennedy and Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev’s willingness to negotiate behind the scenes prevented catastrophe. This underscores the need for diplomacy as a primary tool of deterrence, rather than relying solely on military might.

The concept of escalation dominance inherently invites an arms race. If the Americans aim for superiority at every “rung” of the escalation ladder, adversaries will predictably respond by developing their own capabilities, leading to a dangerous spiral of militarization.

This is evident in the ongoing nuclear arms race with Russia and China, where both nations responded to American advancements with their own. Far from ensuring security, this creates an unstable environment where miscalculation or miscommunication can lead to catastrophic conflict.

Buff’s advocacy for relentless dominance neglects the immense human and ethical costs of prolonged conflict. The destruction in Ukraine serves as a stark warning of the devastation that unchecked militarization can bring. Escalation dominance does not account for the millions of civilians who suffer in war zones, the refugees who flee their homes, or the global economic and environmental impacts of sustained conflict. A more humane approach prioritizes conflict prevention through diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and economic development.

The article frames restraint as synonymous with appeasement, a reductive argument that misrepresents modern security strategies. Restraint does not mean inaction—it means carefully measured responses that avoid unnecessary escalation while maintaining credibility.

The assumption that adversaries only understand brute force disregards the nuanced motivations behind their actions. Engaging adversaries through dialogue and understanding, rather than confrontation, is often a more effective way to address their concerns and reduce hostilities.

The push for escalation dominance ignores the domestic consequences of prioritizing military spending over critical needs like healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Buff argues that America’s survival depends on overwhelming military capability, yet the true strength of a nation lies in the well-being of its people. Allocating resources to address systemic inequalities and bolster resilience at home is a more sustainable approach to national security than pouring trillions into the Pentagon.

Rather than focusing solely on military dominance, the US should adopt a balanced approach to deterrence. It should incorporate four major objectives.

First, diplomacy should always be the first option. Prioritizing dialogue and international cooperation to resolve conflicts must always precede conflict and escalation.

Second, arms control is a necessary component of national strategy. Reinvigorating arms control agreements to reduce the risk of catastrophic war and rebuilding trust with adversaries is a must.

Third, humanitarian engagement is core to American foreign policy. Addressing root causes of instability, such as poverty, inequality, and climate change, through global partnerships, can prevent conflict.

Fourth, smart defense spending is critical to an affordable defense. Invest in modern, cost-effective defense strategies while reallocating excess military funds to domestic needs is important for the nation.

Buff’s call for escalation dominance reflects a worldview that prioritizes power over pragmatism and ignores the interconnected realities of the 21st century. True security comes not from the constant threat of overwhelming force, but from fostering global stability through cooperation, understanding, and sustainable policies. The US must resist the temptation to revert to Cold War thinking and instead embrace strategies that build a more peaceful and equitable world.

Katerina Canyon is the Executive Director of the Peace Economy Project. The views expressed are her own.

Escalation Dominance Is a Flawed Framework was originally published on Global Security Review.

The EAR Report is a must read for National security professionals to stay informed about rapidly evolving global threats and the strategic implications for U.S. defense policy.

This report addresses critical developments in nuclear deterrence, missile defense, and geopolitical trends, and equips professionals with actionable insights to navigate the complexities of modern security challenges effectively.

Commentary and Quotes of the Week

• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: Reaffirmed the U.S.-ROK alliance and the strengthening of extended deterrence through the Nuclear Consultative Group.
  Peter Huessy: Detailed the financial and strategic implications of eliminating the ICBM leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, emphasizing the costs of alternative measures for maintaining current deterrence levels.
  Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Adviser: Highlighted Pakistan’s emerging threat with the development of long-range ballistic missile capabilities.
  Bill Gertz: Revealed China’s rapid nuclear buildup and the expansion of its missile capabilities.
  Russian Leaders: Asserted advancements in missile systems and dismissed arms control as a relic of the past.
  Rep. Chuck Fleischmann: Stressed the urgency of modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent, citing contributions from Tennessee’s Oak Ridge Lab.

Strategic Developments of the Week

• China’s Military Build-Up: The Pentagon report highlighted Beijing’s dramatic advancements in hypersonic missile technology, nuclear warheads, and ‘intelligentized warfare.’
  Russia’s Strategic Actions: Russia’s legislative shift regarding the Taliban and progress in missile systems underlined its geopolitical maneuvers.
  U.S. Missile Defense Challenges: Reports emphasized the lag in U.S. hypersonic missile capabilities compared to China, pressing the need for enhanced missile defense systems.
  Space and Drone Developments: New legislation and technological advances highlight the increasing role of space and drones in modern warfare.

Important Reports of the Week

1. “President Trump Must Put the Nuclear Enterprise on a Wartime Footing” by Robert Peters:
   • Advocates for accelerating nuclear arsenal modernization to restore deterrence credibility.
     Calls for a stronger commitment to stockpile stewardship and missile defense.
2. “Importance of Building Homeland Missile Defense” by Robert Joseph:
   • Reiterates the vision of a comprehensive missile defense system to counter emerging threats.
     Proposes leveraging space-based systems for more robust and efficient protection.
3. “What Happens if the United States Eliminates the ICBM Leg of the Triad?”:
   • Examines the repercussions of removing the ICBM leg, including massive financial costs for alternative deterrence methods and strategic vulnerabilities.

Download the Full Report

ICBM EAR Report for December 20th was originally published on Global Security Review.

This week’s EAR Report brings critical updates on global security dynamics in a world fraught with geopolitical tensions and nuclear threats. ​ From the evolving nuclear doctrines of major powers to the strategic imperatives of missile defense, we provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of international security. ​ Understanding these developments is crucial for policymakers and the public as nations grapple with the complexities of deterrence and defense. ​

Strategic Developments: New Russian Nuclear Doctrine Summary ​

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratified a revised nuclear doctrine, emphasizing nuclear deterrence against potential adversaries, including countries and military alliances that view Russia as an enemy. ​ The doctrine allows for nuclear responses to significant threats to Russia’s sovereignty, even from conventional weapons, and includes the possibility of nuclear retaliation if Belarus, as part of the Union State, is attacked. ​

Homeland Missile Defense ​

North Korea, Russia, and China continue to enhance their long-range missile capabilities, posing a threat to the U.S. homeland. ​ The next U.S. president must prioritize restoring credible missile defense. ​ Recommendations include developing space-based sensors for persistent missile tracking, advancing boost-phase intercept technologies, and creating a multi-layered defense framework incorporating land, sea, air, and space interceptors. ​ The goal is to counter both rogue state missile salvos and limited nuclear launches from major powers. ​

Deterring the Nuclear Dictators: Foreign Affairs by Madelyn Creedon and Franklin Miller ​

The U.S. faces renewed nuclear threats from Russia, China, and North Korea. ​ The Biden administration has updated nuclear-targeting guidance to deter these adversaries simultaneously. ​ However, modernization efforts for the U.S. nuclear deterrent are hampered by industrial base limitations, material shortages, and funding gaps. ​ The next administration should expedite modernization without extensive policy reviews, focusing on replacing aging systems and enhancing the defense industrial base. ​

Key Takeaways

1. Russian Nuclear Doctrine: Emphasizes deterrence against adversaries and allows nuclear responses to significant threats, including conventional attacks. ​
2. Missile Defense: Urgent need for a comprehensive, layered missile defense system incorporating advanced technologies and space-based sensors. ​
3. U.S. Nuclear Deterrence: Updated guidance to deter multiple adversaries; modernization efforts must be accelerated to address current and future threats. ​
4. Industrial Base Challenges: Modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is hindered by industrial limitations and funding issues. ​
5. Strategic Imperatives: The U.S. must maintain a robust nuclear triad and enhance its defense capabilities to ensure national and allied security. ​

ICBM EAR Report – November 22 was originally published on Global Security Review.

Hezbollah, now attempting to fend off Israel’s September 30 ground operation, is simultaneously working to adapt its own approach to technology, and, if history is any indicator of the future, the terror group will likely continue as it has, answering Israel’s high-tech efforts with ironically harder to trace low-tech options. That Hezbollah was even using pagers was to avoid cellular detection. And as they adapt, their communications will likely go even more analog, perhaps communicating only through couriers, as Osama Bin Laden was known to do, or using physical handwritten notes and dead drops, as militant Italian anarchist groups did in the early 2000s.

While the idea of a terrorist group obtaining a more technologically advanced arsenal, such as nuclear or chemical weapons, or instituting a mass cyberattack is daunting, it is not exactly uncommon due to expense and required expertise. What is far more likely is that Hezbollah and other terrorist groups will downgrade methods, opting for cheaper and easier to implement weapons and methods which are more than capable of lethal outcomes.

Time and time again, society has seen heavy damage wrought on person and property via methods that seem relatively primitive.

In 2021, the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas increased their use of incendiary balloons when attacking Israel, causing more than 20 fires in southern Israel, straining civilian and IDF emergency service resources, and burning upward of 10,000 acres of farmland over the preceding three years. These “balloons are easily constructed and require little setup to launch compared to rockets, which are expensive and time-consuming to produce” but are still incredibly effective.

In 2013, a US power plant in California was victim of an as yet unsolved shooting attack, damaging multiple transformers. Surprisingly set up with little to no security, the plant’s perimeter was breached and approximately 100 rounds of high-powered rifle ammunition were fired into 17 transformers before police arrived. The damage was severe enough that to avoid blackouts across Silicon Valley power had to be diverted from other areas during the months-long repair.

While these incidents are high profile, given the critical infrastructure connections, they did not result in any fatalities. However, that is not always the goal of terrorists and is hardly the reality for other common low-tech methods. Shootings, bombings, and melee attacks continue to make up the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks. Research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that from 2015 to 2020,  85 percent of terror attacks employed one of these methods, with 12 percent being unrealized threats, 2 percent other, and 1 percent vehicle ramming.

The numbers are remarkably similar for lethal attacks in 2023 according to the 2024 Global Terrorism Index published by Vision of Humanity. Out of the 50 most lethal terrorist attacks, only one, an incident in the Homs Province of Syria, featuring an explosive-laden unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) targeting a military graduation ceremony which killed 89 people, could be thought of as a high-tech weapon. The other 49 were made up of 43 armed assaults, five bombings, and one explosive projectile.

As terrorist groups get backed into a corner by high-tech counter methods like the Israeli pager attack, it is increasingly likely they will rely on time-proven simple methods. The world may even see them adapting and learning from accidents such as the September 2024 car crash into a gas pipeline in Texas which caused an explosion or the 2017 Hamburg, Germany, airport evacuation which resulted from the accidental discharge of a simple, lipstick-sized can of pepper spray. While these were both accidents, one can imagine the economic and fear-induced impact if a terrorist group were to try to replicate the outcomes.

There are, of course, outliers to the terrorist use of low-tech methods. There is the terrorist cult Aum Shinrikyo’s launch of the notorious Tokyo Sarin gas attack in 1995 or drone attacks along the lines of  2023’s drone attack in Syria, as well as other groups’ potential use of commercial drones. But today’s would-be terrorist is likely not resorting to high-tech weapon or communication devices, and more often than not, going for something easy and/or available. To borrow from Chistopher Nolan’s Joker in the Dark Knight, items like “dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline [are] cheap” and are going to comprise the bulk of the future threats from terrorist groups.

Justin Leopold-Cohen is a homeland security analyst in Washington, DC. He has written widely on national and international security issues for outlets including Small Wars Journal, the Wavell Room, and Inkstick Media. Any views expressed in the article are his own and not representative of, or endorsed by, any organization or government.

Counter Terror’s High-tech to Low-tech Backfire was originally published on Global Security Review.

Whether you are a scholar, a published author, an accomplished

This compendium is instrumental in the advocacy of global security, global nuclear surety, space conflict and deterrence, and much, much more! 

This product is available for download and use as a guide to what is to come for 2024.  If you want to reflect on the past year’s hottest perspective in global security, pass this compendium along to your colleagues, leadership and concerned educators.

Exclusive Preview 

Download the full compendium here.

Knowledge Alert: 2023 Global Security Review Compendium of Articles was originally published on Global Security Review.

Alternatively, credible deterrence may be more readily achieved through the threat of low-yield nuclear weapons actively dispersed throughout the Asia-Pacific. Specifically, it is achieved through the threat of nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCM-N) deployed aboard American submarines. However, the risk of nuclear escalation and the undisclosed conditions under which Xi Jinping could use force need to be factored into American deterrence posture. These conditions likely include any attempts to introduce nuclear weapons into the Taiwan issue and any American security guarantees for the self-governing island.

Preparedness is not a well-covered concept in academic literature and is therefore not as well understood by most civilian strategic thinkers. It is chiefly a military concept for thinking about force generation and deployment. Preparedness is the sustainable capacity to apply capabilities to accomplish government-directed tasks over time. It is composed of readiness and sustainability. Readiness is the ability of a capability to be applied to a specific activity within a nominated time frame for a specified period of time to achieve a desired effect. Sustainability is the ability of a force to maintain the necessary level of combat power for the duration required to achieve its objectives.

There is a fundamental difference between conventional and nuclear preparedness. Conventional forces for theater missions need significant time for mobilization and deployment to signal intent. In contrast, nuclear-armed forces are always “on,” that is deterrence of some form is already operational and credibly signalling intent. Nuclear deterrence provides an operational level of capability (O-LOC) that is readily useable and presents the immediate threat of devastating damage, as opposed to unready conventional deterrence.

Conventional deterrence has significant inadequacies, as Richard K. Betts kindly points out. First, success in conventional operations is likely to be overestimated due to uncertainty in the balance of forces, political constraints, and conditions of engagement. Second, an extreme imbalance of forces is critical to successful outcomes of the initial phase. Third, the deterrence factor of military capabilities depends on political factors, namely the motives and beliefs of the adversary. Fourth, extremely high confidence in conventional options is required to provide the same level of deterrence as the threat of nuclear retaliation. Finally, conventional deterrence raises the risk of escalation to nuclear war. The United States’ Asia-Pacific deterrence posture must factor these shortfalls of conventional deterrence, especially when further undermined by the momentous logistical challenges associated with operating in a vast Asia-Pacific maritime environment.

During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were integral to American and allied preparedness. Credible and reliable deterrence in the Cold War can be attributed to McNamara’s resilient, flexible, and survivable American forces. Continuous nuclear modernization programs throughout the Cold War generated large numbers of strategic platforms and weapons that enabled adaptability in American force development and plans. The Cold War also highlighted the importance of a viable industrial infrastructure that is required to produce strategic forces and provide deterrence, assurance, dissuasion, and damage limitation.

As the Cold War competition ended, the US and Russia gradually decreased their sizeable and diverse nuclear arsenals. From 1987 to 2005, arms control treaties played a central role in reducing nuclear arsenals. Many in the West believed that nuclear deterrence was a thing of the past.

However, this decline in the American arsenal presents a problem today. There is a renaissance in geopolitical competition 101, and the US now faces two nuclear-armed peers—China and Russia. Although, China’s growing military challenge to regional stability was obvious for some time, it is only in the past few years that the US acknowledged China as a peer competitor. In addition to Russia threatening the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, China is diversifying and increasing its nuclear arsenal, presumably in an attempt to gain parity with the US and undermine overall American deterrence and extended deterrence capabilities. It was American nuclear preparedness that helped keep the Cold War cold.

Russia and China are substantially increasing their nuclear preparedness. The US and its allies must acknowledge this reality and adjust, with credible options, their nuclear preparedness. This is especially true in relation to the concept of extended deterrence in the Asia-Pacific, which never got nearly enough attention as Europe did during the Cold War.

However, there is a lack of credible confirmation that the US still views nuclear weapons as a central pillar of deterrence and strategic ambiguity, especially in the Asia-Pacific. In fact, there is quite the opposite with the introduction of “integrated deterrence” in 2022. This concept (which is really just a buzzword) of integrated deterrence actually minimizes the role of nuclear weapons in American grand strategy. The concept has negative implications for preparedness posture settings in the Asia-Pacific that are necessary to deter and defeat PRC aggression against Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.

This compares to Western Europe during the Cold War, which was never satisfied with purely conventional deterrence and wanted American nuclear weapons to provide immediate, reliable, and credible deterrence. The US and its allies must consider the sheer logistical difficulties of conventional deterrence in a maritime environment as vast as the Asia-Pacific. Logistical challenges for conventional deterrence over significant and contested distances, including tasks to guarantee prompt replenishment of disabled combat ships, establish defensive perimeters for fleet support and ensure the safety of fleet replenishment oilers and dry-cargo/ammunition supply ships. Furthermore, significant budget constraints since 2013, coupled with longer-term financial and industrial base uncertainty, raise significant questions about the future of the US Navy’s long-term ability to project power and maintain sea-control (as opposed to sea-denial) in the Asia-Pacific region.

Europe was, and remains, one single geostrategic entity connected by land. Thus, collective deterrence was relatively easy. Whereas, in the Asia-Pacific, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan are significantly more dispersed and separated by long sea-lines-of-communication, with neutral and non-aligned states dotted between them. American forces will need to move significant numbers of vessels, aircraft, troops, supplies, and munitions across these vastly dispersed and contested distances.

There is also the difficulty of concentrating large numbers of strike aircraft at locations other than on aircraft carriers. Whereas, penetrating long-range stealth bombers may offer an advantage because of their range, they may not be sufficient to perform all warfighting and deterrence tasks.

A lack of diverse permanent bases on allied soil greatly increases the demands and stress on an aerial fleet and the logistics involved in keeping American forces adequately supplied. It also makes for significantly longer transit times for ships and submarines to and from distant resupply points. Submarines and many surface combatants are currently unable to replenish their missile magazines without sailing back to the United States. Indeed, it is only now that American planners are starting to think very seriously about the logistics and operational issues of extended deterrence in Asia, which were never given much attention because American seapower in this region was never contested.

As the earlier discussion illustrates, significant logistical challenges associated with conventional deterrence in a maritime environment as vast as the Asia-Pacific call into question reliance on conventional systems to deter aggression at different rungs of the escalation ladder. Low-yield nuclear weapons, such as the SLCM-N, are the most likely solution to the deterrence credibility challenge. An American—and allied—deterrence posture that poses the problem of nuclear escalation in the Asia-Pacific is likely to credibly deter Chinese nuclear escalation. Absent such an effort, China may see the opportunity President Xi is looking for.

Christine M. Leah is a fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Natalie Treloar is at Alpha-India Consultancy. They are based in Australia. The views presented here are their own.

Nuclear Weapons and Military Preparedness in the Asia-Pacific was originally published on Global Security Review.

Since its publication last fall, few foreign policy analysts would argue the world is more secure than it was then. In fact, they would likely argue just the opposite. Blaming the current state of affairs on the NPR would be unfair, but to some, there are key attributes of the NPR that led to more instability than security. To better understand these concerns, let us revisit some key points in the document.

What It Says

The NPR opens by suggesting that “nuclear deterrence is foundational to broader US defense strategy and the extended deterrence commitments that we have made to allies and partners.” Readers are also informed that the government is committed to disarmament obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Due recognition is given to the fact that our principal adversaries (Russia, China, and North Korea) are expanding and diversifying their nuclear and non-nuclear arsenals, which is necessitating the United States replace its legacy nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Posture Review (2022) then gets to the heart of the Biden administration’s plan.

This plan includes: adopting a strategy and policy that sets a high bar for nuclear employment; adopting integrated deterrence; eliminating the “hedge against an uncertain future”; strengthening extended deterrence and allied assurance; pursuing arms control, strategic stability, and nonproliferation; reducing the risk of miscalculation; full-scope triad replacement and  modernization of nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3); retirement of the B83-1 gravity bomb; and cancellation of the nuclear submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N).

The Nuclear Posture Review then turns to the threat posed by Russia and China. According to the administration, by some point in the 2030s the United States will face two nuclear peer competitors or potential adversaries. The changing security environment poses four challenges to deterrence: (1) there is a heightened risk of nuclear weapons use; (2) China is fielding a peer nuclear arsenal; (3) opportunistic aggression is creating deterrence challenges; and (4) multi-domain challenges, which we do not fully understand, are proving challenging.

The Nuclear Posture Review then details the role of nuclear weapons in American strategy. It makes three points: nuclear weapons exist to deter strategic attacks directed against the homeland and allies and partners, nuclear weapons exist to assure allies and partners of American commitment, and nuclear forces exist to achieve American objectives if deterrence fails.

The document then shifts to tailored strategies or “Country-Specific Approaches.”  What appears here is a strategy statement that indicates America’s biggest concern is Russia and China. North Korea is recognized as a threat which, should Kim Jung Un use nuclear weapons “will result in the end of that regime.” It is clear that the United States remains committed to nuclear deterrence in Europe. The same is true for the Indo-Pacific, with the American focus shifting there.

Whether through naivete or simple hope, the United States will continue honoring New START treaty commitments while Russia does not. With New START expiring in 2026, the Biden administration desires to negotiate a new arms control treaty, in spite of the clear evidence, even then, that Russia had different desires.

It is only later in the NPR that a discussion of nuclear modernization takes place. On the positive side, the administration calls for making dual-capable aircraft (F-35) ready to carry the B61-12 gravity bomb; fielding the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, the B21 bomber, and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile; modernizing the NC3 system; and modernizing the weapons complex.

Finally, the Nuclear Posture Review examines the need to refurbish the nuclear stockpile. The Department of Defense and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are called to improve coordination for development and refurbishment of nuclear systems, with NNSA improving production of weapons components required for the short term and beyond.

Six Months later…What Does the NPR Get Right?

The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review gets three things right. First, it does not make “no first use” or “sole purpose” the nuclear policy of the United States. This was a wise decision. Such a decision recognizes that in the current security environment the actions of Russia, China, or North Korea may necessitate a nuclear response to a non-nuclear action. With threats in the cyber and space domains possibly posing a catastrophic risk to the United States and America’s allies questioning our commitment, avoiding either of these policies is wise.

Second, the Biden administration’s continued support for modernization—despite opposition from the disarmament community—was the right decision. As the document states, “We will continue to employ a nuclear triad and are fully committed to the programs that will begin to field modernized systems later this decade.”

Third, the Biden administration clearly committed to needed investments in the production capabilities of the nuclear weapons complex. With the post-Cold War reductions across the science and manufacturing base that took place, the expansion currently under way is a good start, with much more needed.

Every action of Russia, China and North Korea since the Nuclear Posture’s release underscores the wisdom of these decisions.

Six Months Later…What Does the NPR Get Wrong?

There are numerous areas where the Nuclear Posture Review gets it wrong. Time has only underscored the recklessness of the Biden administration’s desire to advance its nuclear disarmament inclinations in the face of Russian aggression and Chinese expansion. The administration’s desire to eliminate the nation’s nuclear hedge, which is the only way to rapidly (3-5 years) expand the American nuclear arsenal, is dangerous.

A Russian breakout from New START limits, continued Chinese expansion and aggression, North Korean expansion, an Iranian bomb, and other events will necessitate an American expansion of its nuclear arsenal. Technical failure of one warhead type may also require the nation to use its hedge. Elimination of the hedge as a “formal role of nuclear weapons” is reckless and dialogue should continue to educate the Biden administration and Congress on this so that the decision is reversed.

Cancellation of SLCM-N is also a significant and destabilizing mistake. Fielding SLCM-N was seen as a way to provide a non-strategic nuclear option to Russian threats in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. Those threats continue in the present because NATO’s dual-capable aircraft (capable of carrying a B61 gravity bomb) are largely political tools and do not effectively deter Russian nuclear threats.

The arguments against SLCM-N do not stand up well against scrutiny. In a defense budget of about $800 billion per year, SLCM-N is a rounding error. It is also a low-yield nuclear option that does not reduce the number of strategic nuclear weapons carried by ballistic missile submarines, like the W76-2. Since SLCM-N is carried by attack submarines instead of ballistic missile submarines, it adds an additional low-yield option on vessels that operate very differently from the strategic nuclear fleet. This is an unwanted complication for Russia, China, and North Korea, which strengthens American deterrence and improves ally assurance.

The Biden administration’s continued support for Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is also a mistake that unduly hampers modernization of the nuclear arsenal. If the nation is embarking on a reinvigoration of nuclear production capability, it is important to reserve the right to test new designs and materials as needed. Testing also has signaling value, particularly in an environment where testing is exceedingly rare. Science-based stockpile stewardship has its strengths, but it is foolish to preclude the option to test in the event it becomes necessary.

The Nuclear Posture Review also fails to clearly explain how the nuclear arsenal defeats hardened and deeply buried targets. It also fails to address unconventional uses of nuclear weapons against the United States. For example, how will the nation respond to an electromagnetic pulse that causes widespread loss?

Admittedly, many long-time nuclear practitioners feared a more disarmament-friendly document, which leaves those same practitioners accentuating the positives discussed above. The document was still largely deaf to a declining strategic environment that has only worsened. North Korean expansion of its nuclear arsenal and ballistic missile program did not pause with the publication of the Nuclear Posture Review. Chinese aggression toward Taiwan and its nuclear expansion are still on pace. Russia continues to threaten NATO and the United States with nuclear weapons use.

Since its publication, the strategic environment and America’s place in the world has only declined. When Bob Peters recently called for a new Nuclear Posture Review, he was right. We should all join him in that call. It is time to let reason, not optimism, drive American nuclear strategy.

The authors thank Bill Murphy, Christine Leah, Zak Kallenborn, Larry School, James Ragland, and Tom Ramos for their contributions to this article.

President Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review…Seven Months Later was originally published on Global Security Review.

Armenia’s biggest vulnerability is that it relies on Russia for defense, which has been a noncommittal security guarantor since at least 2016’s Four Day War. After Armenia was attacked by Azerbaijan on sovereign territory, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan pleaded for help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian dominated defense treaty alliance. In response the CSTO led sent a civilian delegate on “fact finding mission” damaged areas.

Following the week of attacks U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visited Yerevan and stated  Azerbaijan attack as “illegal and deadly”. This diplomatic serendipity to Armenia was a tremendous step for Washington’s advancing relations with Yerevan. However, the Speaker of the House is only one significant leader in the U.S. Government. Nations and non-state actors do not begin formal bilateral cooperation with the U.S. overnight. Cooperation requires many actors in diplomacy, private sector, military, law enforcement, lawmakers, and intelligence, to name some, who share common interest.

The U.S. probably has interests to work with Armenia due to shared democratic values, a bustling tech sector which cooperates with American companies, and diaspora members who carry a significant voice in domestic politics. Armenia very likely has interests to work with the U.S. for the sake of maintaining its sovereignty.  Yet one major point of concern for cooperation with Washington is that only Armenia recognizes the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) based on the Soviet Oblast’s referendum in the 1990s. The rest of the world, including Russia and the U.S., recognize Stalin’s redrawn borders placing the Armenian dominate population firmly within Baku’s authority.

The following are opportunities for Yerevan to press for its highest defense needs while soliciting the White House, Pentagon, and Congress for security assistance. Engaging these American actors probably will take more time, which is a luxury Yerevan does not have. Warm weather in the Caucasus is here again and Azerbaijan may attack again.

Need for Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS)

The most significant threat Armenia faces from Azerbaijan are Turkish-made TB-2 drones (UAVs). According to some war fighting experts, the TB-2 and other drones give Azerbaijan a tremendous attack advantage, providing air-to-ground missile fire, while simultaneously giving real time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to troops. The Turkish-made drone was so successful after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War against Armenian procured Russian defense systems that Ukraine decided to use the same weapons system in its war against Russia. Azerbaijan’s seemingly uncontested attack capability from the air can strike infantry vehicles, tanks, and deny logistics to the front lines.  Judging from sources online, Armenian Armed Forces and Nagorno-Karabakh Self Defense Forces do not seem to have a viable alternative to counter this great threat from the air.

Yerevan needs to understand that only IADS are the most capable counter to Azerbaijan’s threat from the air. To oversimplify, there are several air defense systems which can deny a threat including, man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), surface to air missiles (SAMs), air artillery guns (AAGs), and air-to-air denial from jets.

One option for Yerevan’s new IADS is the Mistral, a French MANPADS which can counter Azeri threats from the air. It operates in many countries outside France, such as Cyprus, Georgia, Serbia, and others. Although the Mistral has yet to be proven in combat against Turkish drones, it could provide a barrier in the air against Azerbaijan’s greatest weapons. France is the highest favored country by Armenians, according to a U.S. think tank poll, and President Macron’s pro-Armenian rhetoric could lead to an air defense deal. As the TB-2 and other Turkish UAVs are some of the most popular in the world today, a counter weapons system would arguably find great demand.

Every Armenian engineer and defense manufacturer should focus on IADS procurement, and domestic research and development right now, from tracking incoming threats to eliminating them.

Soviet Era Doctrine & Personnel Reform 

It logically follows that Russian warfighting doctrine heavily influences Armenian warfighting doctrine. Both borrow from the Soviet Union. In 2011, then-Commanding General of the U.S. Army Europe Mark Hertling and an unnamed Russian General held a conversation on training personnel. General Hertling told his counterpart that without an effective non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps, Russian troops will never be trained effectively. Sure enough, lack of Russian NCOs have been one of the biggest operational issues during their Ukraine campaign. Russian NCOs “Are not in charge of tactics,” Russian military expert Michael Kofman opined to American defense news outlet Defense One “That’s why the Russian military is officer top-heavy. The officer corps handles all those issues that NCOs might.”

Armenia’s conscript-dependent military may desire to emulate the principles of a “professional military” (or “all-volunteer military” – these terms are used interchangeably). Yet, a significant overhaul in doctrine with war potentially imminent likely requires much more dedication in time, resources, and training to overcome critical personnel vulnerabilities. Yerevan can instead task its Ministry of Defense to train a robust NCO corps borrowing from Western doctrine such as the U.S. Call them, for example “Vartan’s Volunteers”, and establish prestige with joining a volunteer all-year NCO corps.

U.S. Medal of Honor Recipient and Afghanistan War Veteran Clint Romesha offered thoughts on what makes efficient NCOs to Task and Purpose, an American military news outlet,

While officers are the ones who put the plan together, it’s those enlisted leaders, the NCOs, who implement it. Even before those orders come down from the officers, the NCOs are moving proactively and preparing the troops, and they are usually the ones fighting with their junior soldiers on the front lines, leading them in combat.

This is not to suggest that Armenian NCOs, officers, or others are not competent. Rather, as some Armenian analysts call for Armenia to become a “Garrison State”, a strong, modern, defense doctrine needs to have “suits” (political and private sector), “stars” (generals and commissioned officers), and “stripes” (NCOs and conscripted) all understand their responsibilities and carry it out effectively. Immediate reform with NCO corps could be a short-term improvement to better improve command and control from the bottom-up, while doctrine is reformed top-down.

For recruitment and conscription guidance, Yerevan can look to nations which have successful programs. Singapore’srelations with Washington are strong and likewise with Yerevan. Singapore’s military has extensively trained with the U.S. and could probably provide insight on personnel, training, and logistics from a civilian to solider mentality. Furthermore, Armenia can utilize contractors from eclectic backgrounds, such as diaspora Armenians from U.S., France, Russia, Lebanon, Greece, or elsewhere. The Armenian government could expand its robust diaspora work-live programs for contractors to train conscripted soldiers, thereby increasing the rate of trained civilians. Moreover, a diaspora group of military experts could perhaps work with the Ministry of Defense as an affiliate council to study and suggest micro and macro-Armenian military inquiries.

Above all, Yerevan must think beyond “pro-Moscow” or “anti-Moscow”. The best militaries in the world borrow strategies, doctrine, operational planning, and more from others to enhance assets to their greatest potential. They do not prepare to fight the last war.

Training 

India’s major arms deal to Armenia may be the first step in a blossoming Armenian relationship. Azerbaijan is strongly allied with Pakistan. India and Pakistan historically share animosity.  Moreover, India views Armenia as a vital link to for its trade route from Iran through the Black Sea region. Indian Mountain Brigades are some of the best mountain troops in the world. It can be argued that Indian President Modhi could find training Armenia for combat in high terrain to test his best operational and tactical methods for the ongoing challenges with China in their own disputed territory.

French President Macron and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have spoken over the phone many times since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. French Sniper Schools are some of the most well-respected institutions in the world. French sniper training to Armenian long-range fighters could prove to be vital for another defensive conflict judging from the rugged terrain and long lines of sight within Armenian territory.

South Korea is a nation which always must consider border security. Perhaps Armenia could learn from South Korean defense against neighboring North Korea, utilizing training programs, expertise on surveillance and counter surveillance, mining, reconnaissance, and communications to headquarters from the forward line of troops.

Equipment & Arms Procurement 

Yerevan needs to look beyond Russian suppliers for equipment and arms procurement. Diplomatic loyalty to allies and financial cost can often be problematic factors for nations who desire to bulwark defense capabilities. If Armenia’s ultimate goal is to earn Washington’s trust and purchase arms from the American private sector, Yerevan should engage US friendly countries to procure “surplus” while diaspora and Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs press American private companies and Congress to procure from the “source”.

Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan declined in relations during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War when Saudi Arabia called for peace instead affirming the Azeri position on territorial claims. Saudi Arabia might be under the impression that a crippled Armenia would mean Turkish dominance over the Caucasus region, and therefore may be inclined to send equipment and defensive weapons to Armenia. Yerevan can argue to Riyadh, perhaps making a case that a Turkish dominated Caucasus region would mean that Sunni Muslim nations in the central Asian steppe would be more inclined to follow Turkey rather than Saudi Arabia.

Greece shares over 2,000 years of mostly positive relations with Armenia. Today, Athens confronts hostile rhetoric from Turkey’s President Erdogan. In 2020, Greece accused Turkish troops of making an incursion within Greek territory. In 2022, Athens sent millions of dollars in defense equipment to Ukraine, according to a speech given by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the U.S. Congress. A revamped Greek military considering perceived Turkish aggression and NATO duties to Ukraine could also aid Armenia.

Brazil just concluded the closest election in its history. Armenia can play to the new President Lula da Silva under the guise as the first Christian nation who desires to prevent another genocide on the grounds of protecting democracy and human rights. Lula may want a quick foreign policy victory as an ecumenical issue while Brazil remains divided domestically. The small but impactful Brazilian-Armenian diaspora can be utilized to this degree.

Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christian minority (which shares ties to Armenian Apostolic Christians) recently suffered a tragic deadly loss of 41 believers in a fire. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi may be seeking an opportunity of good will to his non-Muslim supporters, assisting Armenia could be one. Furthermore, Egyptian-Turkish relations have gone through a rough patch since 2013. Yerevan could leverage Egypt if El-Sisi desires to press Turkey in the tense Eastern Mediterranean.

The above are just a few examples. Yerevan should indiscriminately look to the broader US community of allies. Yet most important, the Armenian Diaspora should focus all efforts on one primary goal: earning the trust of the US military defense industry and carry out private sector deals to Yerevan.

The Armenian Diaspora’s extensive networks were instrumental in pushing the recognition of Armenian Genocide by the Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, and state governments. Yet for all the Diaspora’s merits to raise awareness in history, new history can arguably be made if Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are ethnically cleansed from their homes. Armenian Diaspora can use their tremendously organized body to engage U.S. blue-chip defense contractors. Diaspora education can encourage the American private sector to push Congress for Yerevan to eventually procure American equipment. Once permission is granted, private sector defense contractors can immediately begin selling systems to the now-democratic former Soviet republic for self-defense purposes.

If Armenia Wants Western Defense Support, Doctrine and Partner Engagement Reform Must Happen Now was originally published on Global Security Review.

Unfortunately, this is but one example of a growing trend of authoritarian regimes taking high-profile American detainees to achieve diplomatic ends, as it is an increasingly utilized approach by countries like Iran and China as well. But while this is a foreign policy reality that Americans may increasingly need to come to grips with, many may not be aware that there are also emerging tensions between the United States and United Kingdom over extradition related matters. A key treaty that assists in battling terrorism may hang in the balance.

The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty of 2003 in many ways represents a culmination of the mutual respect and cooperation that exists between these two great nations. Established in the wake of the September 11^thterrorist attacks, it has proven invaluable in ensuring that terrorists and other dangerous criminals are brought to justice and has been effective in protecting national security interests on both sides of the Atlantic.

However, recent attempts by the United States to expand the treaty’s scope to include white-collar criminal matters have raised concerns about its potential misuse and the broader national security implications. The ongoing legal battle over the extradition of Dr. Mike Lynch to the United States, in particular, highlights the potential risks of misusing the treaty in ways that could ultimately undermine this productive working relationship.

Dr. Lynch, a British citizen and tech entrepreneur known by some as ‘Britain’s Bill Gates,’ is the former CEO of the British software company Autonomy. Subject to a years-long fraud investigation by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Dr. Lynch and other executives at Autonomy have been accused of artificially inflating the company’s revenues prior to its acquisition by Hewlett-Packard (HP). However, the case against Dr. Lynch is far from clear-cut.

A British civil court reviewed the corporate dispute and ruled in favor of HP in its claims against Lynch in January 2022. But the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) previously conducted a lengthy investigation into the matter and ultimately decided not to pursue criminal charges concluding that there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute. Moreover, there are serious concerns about the DOJ’s case. Specifically, the DOJ’s indictment of Dr. Lynch relies heavily on the testimony of former Autonomy executives who have themselves been charged with fraud and on disputed accounting practices that were approved by Autonomy’s auditors at the time.

Despite these discrepancies and the fact that this case has been litigated extensively in the British judicial system, the DOJ is still seeking to try Dr. Lynch for his alleged crimes in the United States. This has renewed calls for change by some in the U.K. that are concerned about imbalances in the extradition treaty in favor of the U.S., and who believe it is inappropriate for the U.S. to override the U.K.’s judgment.

In 2020 then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of the treaty, “I do think there are elements of that relationship that are unbalanced and I certainly think that it is worth looking at.” More recently, Tom Tugendhat, the current UK Minister for State Security, has called for the treaty to be “rebalanced.”

It is worth noting that such changes would not be unprecedented. The U.K. has already amended the treaty once, in 2013, to include a “forum provision” that has provided the U.K. with a greater license to refuse extradition requests. Diplomats and national security officials of all stripes should therefore be concerned about the lasting negative impacts that could come if the United States continues to push the limits of the treaty.

The fact of the matter is, this dispute is at its essence a civil dispute and not a matter of national security. Using the treaty to aid in the prosecution of executives involved in an international business transaction is well outside the original intent of this treaty. This could in turn undermine British willingness to cooperate with other, more serious cases such as when the treaty was successfully used in the past to extradite the likes of Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan for providing material support to terrorists, and Abu Hamza al-Masri for conspiring to establish a terrorist training camp and supporting jihad.

The United Kingdom and the United States have long enjoyed a close relationship that has been critical in maintaining global stability and promoting democratic values. With regards to such matters of international law, especially involving cases without any direct impact on national security, it is imperative that officials on both sides of the Atlantic avoid taking measures that would make it more difficult for the two countries to combat terrorism and other serious crimes.

Emerging U.S.-U.K. Tensions May Jeopardize Counterterrorism Efforts was originally published on Global Security Review.

I. Introduction

The concept of warfare has evolved significantly over the years, with the traditional notion of state-on-state conflict increasingly giving way to more complex forms of engagement. This essay explores the concept of hybrid and non-linear warfare, a strategy that systematically blurs the lines between war and peace, and its implications for international security. The Russo-Ukrainian War (2014-2023) and the Chinese approach to hybrid warfare, particularly regarding Taiwan and the South China Sea, serve as case studies to illustrate the practical application of these concepts.

Hybrid warfare combines conventional and unconventional methods, including military operations, cyber warfare, disinformation campaigns, and economic pressure. Non-linear warfare, on the other hand, refers to a strategy that disrupts the traditional battlefield, making it difficult to distinguish between combatants and civilians or between times of war and peace. These strategies have become increasingly prevalent in the 21st century as state and non-state actors seek to gain strategic advantages without resorting to full-scale conventional warfare¹.

The Russo-Ukrainian War provides a clear example of these tactics in action. The conflict, which began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, has been marked by a mix of traditional military operations, cyber attacks, and information warfare.² The war has also been characterized by its non-linear nature, with the front lines and the state of war and peace often blurred.

Meanwhile, China’s approach to hybrid warfare, particularly about Taiwan and the South China Sea, offers another perspective on these strategies. Chinese military theorists Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, in their work “Unrestricted Warfare,” have outlined a broad approach to conflict that includes not only military actions but also economic, informational, and other non-military means.³ This approach, evident in China’s actions in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan, reflects a strategic shift towards hybrid and non-linear warfare.

This essay aims to explore these issues in depth, examining the nature of hybrid and non-linear warfare, its implications for international security, and how it has been employed in the Russo-Ukrainian War and by China. In doing so, it seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of these complex and evolving forms of warfare.

II. Hybrid and Non-Linear Warfare: An Overview

Hybrid and non-linear warfare represent two of the most significant developments in conflict and warfare in the 21st century. Their complexity and fluidity characterize these forms of warfare and the blurring of traditional lines between combatants and civilians and between war and peace.⁴

Hybrid warfare is a type of conflict that blends conventional and unconventional methods, including military operations, cyber warfare, disinformation campaigns, and economic pressure. This form of warfare is not limited to a single shape or dimension and can involve a mix of regular and irregular tactics across all dimensions of war.⁵ The term ‘hybrid warfare’ has been in use since at least 2005 when it was employed to describe the strategy used by Hezbollah in the 2006 Lebanon War.⁶

Non-linear warfare, on the other hand, disrupts the traditional battlefield, making it difficult to distinguish between combatants and civilians or between times of war and peace. This form of warfare utilizes a grand strategy approach, where force-on-force conflict is not the primary objective. Instead, the goal is to create a complex and fluid situation that exploits an opponent’s weaknesses.⁷

Several factors, including advances in technology, the increasing interconnectedness of the world, and the evolving nature of threats, have driven the rise of hybrid and non-linear warfare. These forms of action allow state and non-state actors to gain strategic advantages without resorting to full-scale conventional war. However, they also pose significant challenges to international security, as they can be difficult to detect and counter and have far-reaching impacts on societies’ political, economic, and social fabric.⁸

In the following sections, we will delve deeper into these concepts and explore their implications through the lens of the Russo-Ukrainian War and China’s approach to hybrid warfare about Taiwan and the South China Sea.

III. Case Study: The Russo-Ukrainian War

The Russo-Ukrainian War began in 2014 and is a prime example of hybrid warfare. The conflict started with disguised Russian troops’ covert invasion of the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea. This was followed by the seizure of territory in Ukraine’s Donbas region by Russians and local proxy forces, marking the expansion of the conflict.⁹

In the early stages of the war, Russia employed a blend of conventional and unconventional tactics to destabilize Ukraine. This included cyber warfare, propaganda, economic pressure, and the deployment of “little green men” – soldiers without insignia who were later confirmed to be Russian personnel.¹⁰

However, the war took a significant turn on February 24, 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.¹¹ This marked a shift from the hybrid warfare tactics used in annexing Crimea to a more traditional form of warfare. Despite initial gains by Russian forces, Ukrainian defenders repelled attempts to seize Kyiv and other major cities and soon launched counterattacks at Russian positions.¹²

The full-scale invasion was not executed in the same manner as the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The gradual escalation of tensions and the failure of Russia at a strategic level to achieve its objectives became evident. The invasion resulted in a significant loss of life and displacement of people, with millions fleeing Ukraine.¹³

The Russo-Ukrainian War demonstrates the complexities and challenges of hybrid warfare. While Russia initially succeeded in destabilizing Ukraine through a blend of conventional and unconventional tactics, the shift to a full-scale invasion marked a significant escalation of the conflict. The failure of Russia to achieve its strategic objectives despite this escalation highlights the limitations of hybrid warfare when confronted with a determined and resilient defense.

The Russo-Ukrainian War also underscores the international implications of hybrid warfare. The conflict drew widespread international condemnation and led to significant sanctions against Russia. It also highlighted the role of global alliances and partnerships in countering hybrid warfare tactics.¹⁴

IV. Case Study: China’s Approach to Hybrid Warfare

China’s approach to hybrid warfare, particularly in the context of Taiwan and the South China Sea, offers a unique perspective on applying non-linear warfare strategies. This section will analyze China’s hybrid warfare tactics, focusing on its maritime gray zone operations, cyber warfare capabilities, and information warfare strategies.

China’s hybrid warfare strategy combines military, economic, diplomatic, and informational means to achieve strategic objectives without resorting to open warfare.¹⁵ This approach is particularly evident in China’s maritime gray zone operations in the South China Sea. China has been using a combination of naval, coast guard, and militia forces to assert its territorial claims in the region.¹⁶ These operations are designed to incrementally alter the status quo in China’s favor without provoking a military response from other regional actors or the United States.¹⁷

China has developed significant capabilities in the cyber domain and has been accused of conducting cyber espionage and cyberattacks against foreign governments and corporations.¹⁸ China’s cyber warfare strategy is driven by its perception of other countries’ changing cyber warfare approaches and practices, especially those of the U.S. and Russia.¹⁹ The Chinese government views cyber warfare as consistent with its military strategy, which is modified according to the national security environment, domestic situation, and activities of foreign militaries.²⁰

China’s information warfare strategies also play a crucial role in its hybrid warfare approach. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been using information warfare to control the narrative within its borders and influence perceptions abroad.²¹ The CCP employs various tactics, including censorship, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, to shape public opinion and advance its strategic objectives.²²

In the context of Taiwan, China’s hybrid warfare approach is designed to isolate Taiwan internationally, undermine its political system, and gradually erode its will to resist unification with the mainland.²³ This strategy includes diplomatic pressure to reduce the number of countries recognizing Taiwan, economic coercion to make Taiwan more dependent on the continent, and military intimidation to demonstrate China’s resolve to achieve unification.²⁴

China’s approach is multifaceted and adaptive, reflecting its strategic objectives and the evolving security environment. This approach allows China to pursue its interests and assert its influence without resorting to open warfare, thereby minimizing the risk of escalation and international backlash.

V: Causes and Consequences of Hybrid Warfare

Hybrid warfare, as a complex and multifaceted form of conflict, is driven by various causes and has significant national and international security consequences. This section will explore these causes and effects, drawing on various academic sources to provide a comprehensive analysis.

V.1 Causes of Hybrid Warfare

The causes of hybrid warfare are multifaceted and complex, reflecting the diverse nature of this form of conflict. One key driver is the changing nature of power in the international system. Monaghan notes that the diffusion of power away from states and toward non-state actors has created an environment where hybrid threats can thrive.²⁵ This is particularly true in the digital domain, where non-state actors can wield significant influence.

Another cause of hybrid warfare is the desire of states to achieve their objectives without resorting to conventional action, which is often costly and risky. Hybrid warfare allows states to exploit the “gray zone” between peace and war, using military and non-military means to achieve their objectives.²⁶ This is evident in the case studies of Russia and China discussed in the previous sections.

V.2 Consequences of Hybrid Warfare

The consequences of hybrid warfare are significant and wide-ranging. At the national level, hybrid warfare can undermine state sovereignty, security, and the rule of law. This is evident in the case of Ukraine, where Russia’s use of hybrid warfare tactics has resulted in a protracted conflict that has undermined Ukraine’s sovereignty and security.²⁷

At the international level, hybrid warfare can destabilize the global system and challenge the norms and principles that underpin it. This is particularly the case in the South China Sea, where China’s use of hybrid warfare tactics has challenged the principle of freedom of navigation.²⁸

Hybrid warfare also has significant implications for the conduct of warfare. As Baines and Edwards note, hybrid warfare blurs the lines between combatants and civilians and between war and peace.²⁹ This complicates the conduct of action and poses significant ethical and legal challenges.

VI: Rethinking Warfare: A New Framework

The evolution of warfare, particularly the rise of hybrid and non-linear warfare, necessitates a new framework for understanding and responding to these threats. This section will explore the need for a new framework, the critical elements of this framework, and how it can be applied to the case studies of Russia and China.

1. The Need for a New Framework
   The traditional understanding of warfare, which primarily focuses on conventional military conflict, is no longer sufficient to address the complexities of the contemporary security environment³⁰. Hybrid warfare, characterized by blending conventional, irregular, and cyber warfare, along with other non-military tools, has become a prevalent strategy for state actors.³¹ This necessitates a new framework that can effectively address the multi-dimensional nature of hybrid warfare.
2. Key Elements of the New Framework: The new framework should incorporate the following key elements:
   1. Comprehensive Understanding of Hybrid Warfare: The framework should provide a comprehensive understanding of hybrid warfare, including its various dimensions, such as conventional, irregular, cyber, and information warfare.³² It should also consider using non-military economic, diplomatic, and political tools.
   2. Recognition of the Role of Non-State Actors: The framework should recognize the role of non-state actors in hybrid warfare. This includes not only insurgent groups and terrorists but also cybercriminals, hackers, and other actors who state actors can co-opt to achieve their objectives.³³
   3. Incorporation of Technological Developments: The framework should incorporate the impact of technological developments on warfare. This includes using cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies.³⁴
   4. Focus on Resilience and Defense: The framework should emphasize the importance of resilience and defense in responding to hybrid threats. This includes not only military security but also strengthening societal resilience, cyber protection, and other non-military reasons. ³⁵
3. Application to the Case Studies of Russia and China: The new framework can be applied to the case studies of Russia and China to provide a more comprehensive understanding of their hybrid warfare strategies.
   1. Russia: The new framework can help to understand Russia’s use of hybrid warfare in Ukraine. It can shed light on Russia’s use of conventional and irregular warfare, cyber and information war, and non-military tools such as economic and political measures³⁶.
   2. China: The new framework can help to understand China’s use of hybrid warfare in its approach towards Taiwan and the South China Sea. It can shed light on China’s use of conventional and irregular warfare, cyber and information war, and non-military tools such as economic and political measures.³⁷

The continuous evolution of warfare necessitates a new framework for understanding and responding to hybrid threats. This framework should provide a comprehensive experience of hybrid warfare, recognize the role of non-state actors, incorporate technological developments, and focus on resilience and defense. It can be applied to the case studies of Russia and China to provide a more comprehensive understanding of their hybrid warfare strategies.

VII. The Agile Approach to Hybrid Warfare

The agile approach to hybrid warfare is a strategic response that emphasizes flexibility, adaptability, and rapid decision-making in the face of complex and evolving threats. This approach is particularly relevant in hybrid warfare, where the lines between conventional and unconventional warfare are blurred, and the adversary’s tactics constantly evolve.

The agile approach is not a new concept in military strategy. It is rooted in maneuver warfare principles, which emphasize speed, surprise, and initiative to disrupt the enemy’s decision-making process.³⁸ However, applying these principles to hybrid warfare is a relatively recent development.

The NATO Alliance has recognized the need for an agile approach to hybrid threats. In its 2016 Warsaw Summit, NATO leaders agreed on a strategy to enhance the Alliance’s resilience against hybrid threats, emphasizing the need for rapid decision-making, enhanced situational awareness, and improved strategic communications.³⁹

The U.S. Department of Defense has adopted an agile approach to hybrid threats. The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review highlighted the need for a more agile force that can quickly adapt to new threats and challenges.⁴⁰ This approach has been further developed in the concept of Multi-Domain Operations, which seeks to integrate capabilities across all domains (land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace) to create multiple dilemmas for the adversary.⁴¹

The agile approach to hybrid warfare also has implications for defense acquisition and technology development. Rapid technological change and the proliferation of advanced technologies to non-state actors and near-peer competitors have increased the complexity of the threat environment. Defense organizations must rapidly adopt more agile and flexible acquisition processes to field new capabilities.⁴²

However, the agile approach is not without its challenges. It requires high coordination and integration across different domains and agencies, which can be challenging to achieve in large and complex organizations. It also requires a cultural shift towards greater risk tolerance and a willingness to experiment and learn from failure.⁴³

An agile approach to hybrid warfare offers an intriguing framework for responding to the complex and evolving threats posed by hybrid warfare. However, its successful implementation requires significant organizational and cultural changes.

VIII. Policy Recommendations

The complexity and evolving nature of hybrid warfare necessitates a comprehensive and adaptive approach to policy-making. The following recommendations are proposed to counter hybrid threats effectively:

1. Strengthening International Cooperation: The international community must work together to counter hybrid threats. This includes sharing intelligence, coordinating responses, and developing joint strategies. In this direction, NATO has already taken steps, establishing the Hybrid Analysis Branch and the Hybrid Warfare Fusion Cell to enhance understanding and response to hybrid threats.⁴⁴ However, more can be done to strengthen these efforts, including expanding these initiatives to include non-NATO members and fostering closer cooperation with the private sector and civil society.
2. Building Resilience: Resilience is critical to countering hybrid warfare. This includes societal resilience, such as public awareness and media literacy to counter disinformation campaigns, and institutional resilience, such as robust cyber defenses and crisis management capabilities.⁴⁵
3. Investing in Research and Development: Technological advancements play a significant role in hybrid warfare. Therefore, investing in research and development in artificial intelligence, cyber security, and advanced weaponry can provide a competitive edge.⁴⁶
4. Enhancing Legal and Normative Frameworks: Hybrid warfare often exploits legal and normative gray zones. Therefore, enhancing international legal and normative frameworks to address these challenges is crucial. This includes clarifying the application of international law in the cyber domain and developing norms against the use of disinformation and other hybrid tactics.⁴⁷
5. Adopting a Whole-of-Government Approach: Countering hybrid threats requires a coordinated approach involving all government sectors. This includes the military and intelligence agencies and departments dealing with foreign affairs, domestic security, finance, and infrastructure.⁴⁸
6. Promoting Strategic Communication: Effective communication is crucial in countering hybrid warfare. This includes both internal and external communication within the government with the public and international partners. Strategic communication can help to counter disinformation, build public trust, and promote a unified response to hybrid threats.⁴⁹

Countering hybrid warfare requires a comprehensive and adaptive approach involving all societal sectors. By strengthening international cooperation, building resilience, investing in research and development, enhancing legal and normative frameworks, adopting a whole-of-government approach, and promoting strategic communication, we can effectively counter the complex and evolving threats posed by hybrid warfare.

IX. Conclusion

Hybrid warfare, characterized by blending conventional, irregular, and cyber action with other non-military tools, has emerged as a significant challenge in the contemporary security environment. This essay has comprehensively analyzed hybrid war, its causes and consequences, and the need for a new framework to understand and respond to these threats.

The case studies of Russia and China illustrate hybrid warfare’s diverse and complex nature. Russia’s actions in Ukraine and China’s approach towards Taiwan and the South China Sea demonstrate how state actors can exploit the “gray zone” between peace and war to achieve their objectives.^{50 51} These case studies underscore the need for a comprehensive understanding of hybrid warfare that includes both military aspects and non-military dimensions, such as economic, diplomatic, and political measures.

The causes of hybrid warfare are multifaceted and complex, reflecting the changing nature of power in the international system and the desire of states to achieve their objectives without resorting to conventional action.⁵² The consequences of hybrid action are significant and wide-ranging, undermining state sovereignty and security, destabilizing the international system, and complicating the conduct of warfare.⁵³

The agile approach to hybrid warfare offers a promising framework for responding to these complex and evolving threats. This approach emphasizes flexibility, adaptability, and rapid decision-making and incorporates the impact of technological developments on warfare.⁵⁴ However, its successful implementation requires significant organizational and cultural changes.

The policy recommendations proposed in This essay provide a roadmap for countering hybrid threats. These include strengthening international cooperation, building resilience, investing in research and development, enhancing legal and normative frameworks, adopting a whole-of-government approach, and promoting strategic communication.⁵⁵ However, the effectiveness of these measures will depend on the specific circumstances of each country and the nature of the threats they face.

Endnotes

¹ Smith, M. E. (2016). Hybrid warfare and its implications for defense and security policies. European View, 15(2), 223-234.
² Galeotti, M. (2019). The Russo-Ukrainian War: A Case Study in Non-Linear Warfare. In Non-Linear Warfare (pp. 45-64). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
³ Liang, Q., & Xiangsui, W. (1999). Unrestricted Warfare. PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House.
⁴ Hoffman, F. G. (2007). Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars. Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 1-72.
⁵ Kaldor, M. (2012). New and old wars: Organised violence in a global era. Stanford University Press.
⁶ Van Puyvelde, D. (2015). Hybrid war – does it even exist? NATO Review. Retrieved from https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2015/05/07/hybrid-war-does-it-even-exist/index.html
⁷ Hoffman, F. G. (2009). Hybrid warfare and challenges. JFQ: Joint Force Quarterly, (52), 34-39.
⁸ Kofman, M., & Rojansky, M. (2015). A Closer Look at Russia’s “Hybrid War.” Kennan Cable No. 7. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
⁹ Galeotti, Mark. “Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West: Continuity and Innovation in Moscow’s Exercise of Power.” Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, March 2016.
¹⁰ “Documents on Democracy: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.” Journal of Democracy, 2023.
¹⁵ Fravel, M. Taylor. “China’s Strategy in the South China Sea.” Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 33, no. 3 (2011): 292-319.
¹⁶ Erickson, Andrew S., and Ryan D. Martinson. “China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations.” Studies in Chinese Military Science (2019).
¹⁷ Yoshihara, Toshi, and James R. Holmes. “China’s Vision of Victory.” The Diplomat, June 6, 2019.
¹⁸ Segal, Adam. “What Are China’s Cyber Capabilities and Intentions?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 1, 2019.
²¹ Brady, Anne-Marie. “Magic Weapons: China’s Political Influence Activities Under Xi Jinping.” Wilson Center, September 18, 2017.
²³ Chase, Michael S., and Benjamin S. Purser III. “China’s Long-Range Bomber Flights: Drivers and Implications.” RAND Corporation, 2015.
²⁴ Tsang, Steve. “Taiwan’s Impact on China: Why Soft Power Matters More than Economic or Political Inputs.” The China Quarterly 177 (2004): 25-44.
²⁵ Monaghan, Andrew. “The ‘War’ in Russia’s ‘Hybrid Warfare.'” Parameters 45, no. 4 (2015): 65-80.
²⁶ Hoffman, Frank G. “Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars.” Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007.
²⁷ Galeotti, Mark. “I’m Sorry for Creating the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine.'” Foreign Policy, 2018.
²⁸ Yoshihara, Toshi and Holmes, James R. “Red Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy.” Naval Institute Press, 2018.
²⁹ Baines, Paul, and Edwards, Nicholas. “The Art of Hybrid War: China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations.” Naval War College Review 73, no. 2 (2020): 1-37.
³⁰ Hoffman, F. G. (2007). Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars. Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.
³¹ Johnson, R. (2018). Hybrid warfare and its countermeasures: A critique of the literature. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 29(1), 141-163.
³² Thiele, R. D. (2017). Hybrid warfare and the changing character of conflict. Connections, 16(2), 65-72.
³³ Popescu, N. (2015). Hybrid tactics: neither new nor only Russian. EUISS Issue Alert, 4.
³⁴ Kostyuk, N., & Zhukov, Y. M. (2019). Invisible digital front: Can cyber attacks shape battlefield events? Journal of Conflict Resolution, 63(2), 317-347.
³⁵ Baines, P. R., & Jones, K. (2019). Influence and interference in foreign elections: the real threat to the ‘free and fair’ election process? Intelligence and National Security, 34(5), 685-703.
³⁶ Galeotti, M. (2016). Hybrid, ambiguous, and non-linear? How new is Russia’s ‘new way of war’? Small Wars & Insurgencies, 27(2), 282-301.
³⁷ Cheung, T. M., & Thomas, J. (2018). The impact of China’s military modernization on regional stability. In China’s Evolving Military Strategy (pp. 1-30). Brookings Institution Press.
³⁸ Lind, William S. “Maneuver Warfare: Can We Make It Work?” Defense & Security Analysis 5, no. 2 (1989): 153-161.
³⁹ “Warsaw Summit Communiqué.” NATO. July 9, 2016. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/officialtexts133169.htm.
⁴⁰ “Quadrennial Defense Review 2014.” U.S. Department of Defense. March 4, 2014. https://archive.defense.gov/pubs/2014QuadrennialDefenseReview.pdf.
⁴¹ “Multi-Domain Operations.” U.S. Army. https://www.army.mil/standto/archive/2018/12/06/.
⁴² Gansler, Jacques S., and William Lucyshyn. “Defense Acquisition Reform: Where Do We Go from Here?” University of Maryland School of Public Policy, Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise. October 2014. https://www.csis.org/analysis/defense-acquisition-reform-where-do-we-go-here.
⁴³ Blanken, Leo J., and Jason Lepore. “Is the U.S. Military Ready for Agile Acquisition?” War on the Rocks. August 14, 2019. https://warontherocks.com/2019/08/is-the-u-s-military-ready-for-agile-acquisition/.
⁴⁴ “Hybrid Warfare,” NATO, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics156338.htm.
⁴⁵ “Hybrid Warfare: New Threats, Complexity, and Trust as the Antidote,” NATO Review, 2023, https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2021/11/30/hybrid-warfare-new-threats-complexity-and-trust-as-the-antidote/index.html.
⁴⁶ Andrew Monaghan, “The ‘War’ in Russia’s ‘Hybrid Warfare,'” Prism 8, no. 2 (2019): 104-120, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/prism/prism8-2/PRISM8-2Monaghan.pdf.
⁵⁰ Monaghan, Andrew. “The ‘War’ in Russia’s ‘Hybrid Warfare.'” Parameters 45, no. 4 (2015): 65-80.
⁵¹ Yoshihara, Toshi and Holmes, James R. “Red Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy.” Naval Institute Press, 2018.
⁵² Hoffman, Frank G. “Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars.” Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007.
⁵³ Baines, Paul, and Edwards, Nicholas. “The Art of Hybrid War: China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations.” Naval War College Review 73, no. 2 (2020): 1-37.
⁵⁴ Lind, William S. “Maneuver Warfare: Can We Make It Work?” Defense & Security Analysis 5, no. 2 (1989): 153-161.
⁵⁵ “Hybrid Warfare,” NATO, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics156338.htm.

The Changing Face of Conflict: What is Hybrid Warfare? was originally published on Global Security Review.

The modern Turkish Armed Forces form its identity with the foundation of the Republic, protecting the tenents of the Founding Father, Atatürk, who enshrined a constitution that is still today one of the most advanced legislative examples of governance, spanning Secularism, National Unity, and the very existence of the nation-state itself. These principles upheld as both a virtue and a right, function in unison with the Imperial legacy of the nation, encapsulated via Fatih The Conqueror who upon his victory at Constantinople (subsequently renamed Istanbul) placed Kayser-I-Rum otherwise translated as Caesar of Rome as one of his main honorifics, enabling the bestowment of respect for the responsibility to also protect citizens who are descendants of those that once lived within Ottoman borders as displayed in operations spanning Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, Syria across the decades and continuing to this very day.

The Turkish Armed Forces play a crucial role in curbing Russian influence in nations like Syria and Libya and stopping the efforts of the People’s Republic of China to gain inroads in the Aegean. Turkey is one of the few NATO nations with active personnel directly countering the Russian Federation, notably in Libya and Syria. At the same time, Turkish Bayraktar drones and newly allocated Turkish naval corvettes support the valiant Ukrainian forces leading their campaign to reclaim their homeland.

The integration of the Turkish Republic and the Turkish Armed Forces into the region’s supreme power has resulted in further integration into NATO and the emergence of a pan-continental power. The introduction of the TCG Anadolu aircraft carrier and the use of F-35s and Eurofighter jets will underscore the security of the grain export agreement and ensure Turkish military and state prowess in the Black Sea and by defacto the Caucasus. The renewal of military alliances, such as the US-Turkish Mechanism and the military alliance between the United Kingdom and the Turkish Republic, highlights the importance of protecting the Eastern and Southern Flanks of NATO. In the coming period, Turkey will integrate hypersonic missiles into its arsenal of strength, in tandem with the US commitment to modernize existing tactical nuclear capabilities already held in the country.

The recent earthquake that has impacted historical cities such as Gaziantep and Adana, where the Incirlik Airbase is located, has once again turned the populace and leadership of the country to the Turkish Armed Forces. The TAF has taken full operational control over the fallout of the seismic damage, displaying their leadership, operational prowess, and sense of duty beyond purely being the Armed Forces of the Turkish nation. As Turkey approaches its centennial anniversary, the Turkish Armed Forces remain the beacon of the homeland and its guardian, providing hope and affection to citizens who have lost their homes and loved ones due to the quakes.

More Than an Army: The Turkish Armed Forces as a Core Pillar of National Identity was originally published on Global Security Review.

According to McAfee, over $1 trillion was lost to cybercrime in 2020. Some estimate if governments do not secure the cybersphere, this number will continue to skyrocket and reach over $10 trillion annually by 2025. Even cybersecurity firms are at risk. For example, FireEye, a government contract cybersecurity company, was recently a victim of a state-sponsored attack targeting its assessment tools.

Currently, the United States has no whole-of-government approach to secure its cyber vulnerabilities. Private companies maintain most of the control, with little to no oversight, and the Department of Defense (DOD) focuses almost exclusively on military cyber vulnerabilities. The United States needs to take definitive action to secure its systems to avoid further loss. By expanding the Department of Defense’s Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), the U.S. can create a whole-of-government approach to improve resiliency and consolidate cyber expertise and resources.

USCYBERCOM is one of the commands of the Department of Defense. It has three points of focus: defending the DOD’s network, offering mission support, and strengthening U.S. networks against cyber-attacks. Expanding USCYBERCOM’s focus beyond military capabilities to include other U.S. Government Departments, allies, and private companies will lead to more effective policy.

First, expanding USCYBERCOM increases resiliency against internal and external threats, against both state and non-state actors. By adapting preexisting infrastructure, more of these threats can be easily assessed and rectified. USCYBERCOM methods can be easily expanded to encompass more critical infrastructure.

Second, consolidating resources means more effective work. The number of qualified personnel is relatively small and spread through different government agencies and private companies. By fusing the specialized workforce, the government can implement more innovative ideas and decrease vulnerability. Furthermore, merging budgets provides more extensive protection. The United States government spends between $18-19 billion per year on cybersecurity. Instead of having this money spent across various agencies and departments, collective action would be more easily achieved by combining them.

Finally, expanding USCYBERCOM leads to a whole-of-government approach. As it currently stands, private companies work separately on their systems, the US government employs them, and there is little oversight. USCYBERCOM works on military cyber capacities with congressional oversight. An expanded USCYBERCOM would involve more government agencies, include private companies’ input, and generate even more robust oversight from the Congress. This extensive involvement creates a well-rounded approach to cyber vulnerabilities and a timely response to discovered weaknesses.

For some, the dual-hat arrangement that the commander of CYBERCOM is also the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) is controversial. Established in 2009 under the Obama Administration, USCYBERCOM was a small operation, and under the agreement, USCYBERCOM and NSA shared staffing and information resources. Following the Snowden leaks, different leaders have suggested the separation of the two. But this is not in the interest of national cybersecurity as, without this agreement, the NSA would not be compelled to share information or manpower. Without formal information-sharing agreements, U.S. agencies may be simultaneously working to address the same vulnerabilities. Expanding CYBERCOM will reduce duplication and lead to a more effective government response to cyberattacks and cyber vulnerabilities.

Expanding the responsibilities and members of USCYBERCOM gives the United States the ability to stand against malicious actors by implementing comprehensive and unified cyber policy. Decisive action will enable us to address vulnerabilities and reduce monetary and property losses. As the internet continues to expand, CYBERCOM can protect and promote American security and prosperity.

Expand U.S. CYBERCOM to better secure American Infrastructure was originally published on Global Security Review.

Amongst the backdrop of the shared concern for Taipei’s security threats permeated all levels of society from the People’s Republic of China via the Chinese Communist Party or, in other words, directly from Xi Jinping himself, with each statement indicating a China that has now positioned itself as not simply our competitor but rather our collective foe.

The capabilities of the Chinese People’s Republic are correlated heavily to a system of governance allowing them to grant the Executive with a full ‘vestiture’ of power, able to threaten our way of life in an instance and further strike at us via hypersonic missiles that no longer require local positioning close to our borders to reach our very zip codes themselves. China doubles down on its executive privilege by being able to bypass (via non-existence) the equivalent of Senate Appropriations to arm our foes. At the same time, we are left to the mercy of special interest groups and biased lobbies when seeking to arm NATO allies such as the Republic of Turkey. They require a trifecta of F-35s, Patriot missile defense systems, and shared hypersonic missile placement to counter the Russian Federation on the Southern and Eastern Flank of the Transatlantic Alliance. The case is clear for more power to be granted to the Executive in the United States as well as NATO nations to ensure that we can utilize statecraft at its ‘maxima’ concerning both committing to and executing both our unilateral and shared national security objectives against President Putin who enjoys the largesse of a modern Ivan the Terrible and Xi Jinping seemingly governing China in a manner akin to Emperor Wenzong of Qing.

A system of governance that vests further direct command to NATO leaders domestically, notably in matters concerning military deployment as well as the provision of strategic hardware amongst allies, is imperative in the current backdrop globally, which is far more reminiscent of the permeations before the First World War juxtaposed with that of the implicit build-up to the Cold War. To enable such prowess overseas, notably in countries that already function within a Presidential system within NATO, such as the United States and the Turkish Republic, domestically, systems must be in place to ensure local stability. One such successful structure that provided our security in the West for many decades against the Soviet Union was referred to as GLADIO or, in other words, “Stay-Behind,” with the coinage being that military-civilian structures were in place to ensure both the continuity of the state in the event of a Comintern invasion or domestic subversion campaign and on day-to-day basis combat local anti-NATO illegal organizations and cells from endangering the lives of one’s populace and to halt any infiltration at the time by Soviet assets within Western governments. Recently, Chinese assets were identified within the U.S. Treasury Department, and Russian Agents were charged with acts amounting to seeking a total dismantling of the American political system; therefore, our foes have already commenced actions indicative of exploiting our systematic institutional weaknesses and domestic “Stay-Behind” structures are crucial to combat China and Russia’s campaign to use our form of Democracy, with all its benefits and caveats, in a manner to undermine our way of life.

There are two very successful organizations in this regard which were exemplified historically by the United Kingdom and the Republic of Turkey, one being the “Force Research Unit” (F.R.U.) and the other “Kontrgerilla” (Counter-Guerrilla) respectively for both nations. The F.R.U. exemplified the British Army’s clinical response to the thousands of killings carried out by the Separatists in Northern Ireland with heroics displayed by the late Captain Robert Nairac, with the section’s activities being noteworthy in combatting both the domestic strife caused by the illegal separatists as well as stopping overseas support provisioned to them by the Soviets. In the Turkish Republic, against a backdrop of compounding political tensions between the 1970-the 80s, Counter-Guerrilla successfully defeated a plethora of illegal Stalinist, Marxist and Leninist groups seeking to destabilize the NATO member nation domestically and thus ensuring the structure and continuity of the state while cutting off Soviet support for such cells providing NATO with shared security from Istanbul to Washington.

Whilst the populace in the United States bemoans a political system where such discontent is evident by the recent creation of the Forward Party whereby though insignificant with regard to political clout, is sufficient emphasis that those chosen to lead our nations are not fulfilling their vows “spoken upon thee” when first seeking office, the fact is that no matter the individual, no matter the party, unless the Executive has parity of power with regard to governance at a level that is comparable with the executive privilege enjoyed by our superpower foes who are seeking to undermine the rules-based international order, then we run the risk of losing the war of “Great Power Competition” and unless we streamline our institutional governance to prioritize whomever we choose to lead us, empowering them also with the apparatus to mobilize and safeguard our national security via clandestine our very way of life in the West itself may be at the mercy of the next stage of Beijing’s Hypersonic missiles.

New Age NATO: The necessary might of leadership, minus the inhibitions of bureaucracy was originally published on Global Security Review.

This applies as much to the F-35 as any other system and Congress should especially keep this in mind as they continue to work through the National Defense Authorization Act, which just passed the House of Representatives last this week, but still must clear the Senate and be reconciled in conference committee. It is critical that any needed improvements to this aircraft are made in a manner that is the least disruptive, and that does not compromise readiness and the ability of America and its allies fielding the F-35 to respond quickly to any situation.

There are some in Washington, for instance, who are calling for a wholesale engine replacement for the F-35. Instead of upgrading the existing powerplant on the F-35 – known as the F135 engine – these individuals are instead proposing the revival of a previously cancelled program known as the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP). This would be a serious mistake.

Derived from the tried-and-true powerplant of the F-22 Raptor, the F135 engine has been one of the few bright spots in the F-35 program, setting several new performance benchmarks. Still, while the F135 engine has more than met its original stringent specifications, the F-35’s planned mission growth will require even greater thrust, power, and thermal management capabilities within eight years. An engine upgrade is not optional; without it, this combat aircraft will lack the speed and precision needed to maintain superiority in modern battlespaces.

As a result, an Enhanced Engine Package (EEP) has been proposed to retrofit the F135 engine to meet and even exceed these revised specifications. Taking this approach rather than trying to replace the entire engine with the AETP is preferable for a number of reasons.

First, starting from scratch with a whole new engine will inevitably set back the deployment of new F-35 aircraft by months or even years. Seldom do such major engineering endeavors go off without a hitch, and it is entirely realistic to expect new and unforeseen problems to surface with the new powerplant before it can be reliably deployed. Instead, making improvements to an existing, proven, and reliable powerplant will build on past successes, challenges, and lessons, and eliminate a great deal of downtime between concept and actual fielding.

Second, retrofitting the existing engine will minimize disruptions to the existing supply chain. A new engine means a whole new supply chain. At the best of times this is an expensive and time-consuming prospect. These are clearly not the best of times in terms of parts procurement, manufacturing, and delivery. The dedicated existing supply chain in place with the F135 engine will be a significant advantage and will minimize the cost and downtime to bring needed upgrades online versus entirely replacing the engine.

Third is the impact on the F-35’s universality. One of the greatest benefits of the Joint Strike Fighter is the fact that it was a joint project between not only the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, but also among nine allied partner nations, including the UK and our NORAD partner Canada. The reality is that replacing the F135 engine is an expensive undertaking, and operational complications with the AETP mean that it will in all likelihood solely be an Air Force project.

Our allies, even assuming they would be able to absorb the cost of the new engine, cannot afford to manage two separate powerplants, two separate supply chains, and two separate maintenance programs. The AETP is also incompatible with the Navy and Marine versions – the F-35B Short Takeoff/Vertical Landing (STOVL), and the F-35C carrier-based version – because these respective branches cannot fit the engine into their versions of the aircraft. This means the Navy and Marines would have different powerplants than the Air Force version. It also means that our allies will have aircraft with different engines (and parts, supply chains, support, etc.) than the Air Force. This greatly complicates that universality of the program and creates interoperability issues.

Probably most important impact is what an engine replacement would have on operational capability. In the time it would take to test and establish a new supply chain for a new engine, upgrades to the existing F-35 engine could already be completed. The impact on operational readiness of the F-35 would be minimal and the pilots who fly this machine would know that they are operating an aircraft with a proven and reliable engine.

The bottom line is that decisions need to be made on what is best for the mission and, by extent, for America and its allies. The F-35 fleet needs upgrades, but it absolutely must be done in a way minimizes costs and downtime, so that we never compromise our edge and our readiness.

F-35 Upgrades Must Not Compromise Readiness was originally published on Global Security Review.

Even before Russia’s war on Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, the Russo–American nuclear arms control dialogue was icy. Both states withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that previously precluded any deployment of nuclear or conventional missiles with ranges from 500 to 5,500 kilometers. Russian President Vladimir Putin showcased several advanced nuclear delivery systems in development or ready for deployment in his address to the Russian Federal Assembly in 2018. Putin continued to object to American missile defenses deployed in European NATO member-states as part of the alliance’s modernization plans, describing these ship-based and shore-located antimissile systems as potential threats to Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

As the Biden administration took office, the last nuclear arms control agreement remaining was the New START Treaty of 2010, which was scheduled to expire in February 2021 unless the United States and Russia agreed to a five-year extension. Fortunately, the Biden administration moved rapidly to negotiate an extension with Russia, leaving New START in place for another five years. However, New START’s value lies less in its symbolism or historical status than in its potential for revitalizing the Russo–American nuclear arms control process. If New START cannot be the cornerstone for a rebooted nuclear arms control regime, it will be a historical footnote but not a favorable augury for future progress.

Progress in nuclear arms control between Russia and the United States is a necessary condition for other steps to reduce the risks of future nuclear war. Together, both countries control about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. Any hope of restraining vertical proliferation (larger arsenals among existing nuclear weapons states) or horizontal proliferation (the spread of nuclear weapons to additional state or non-state actors) depends upon leadership from Washington and Moscow.  Regional rivalries in the Middle East and Asia could increase the number of nuclear weapons states outside of Europe or create new incentives for non-nuclear powers to acquire nuclear arsenals.  New nuclear weapons states often lack the technologies, tactics, techniques, and procedures to field nuclear weapons that are secure from a first strike or possess the warhead security employed by the United States and Russia.

If New START is the basic building block for resuming a cooperative security relationship with Russia, what does it entail? New START restricts the number of operationally deployed nuclear warheads for each state to 1,550 weapons on a maximum number of 700 deployed launchers (intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM); and heavy bombers). Current Russian and American strategic nuclear forces comply with these New START limits. Counting rules treat each bomber as a single weapon, although bombers actually carry variable numbers of weapons. Thus, the official New START figures understate the total numbers of weapons actually deployed by each side.

Within a common ceiling on the numbers of weapons and launchers deployed under New START limits, the US and Russia have strategic nuclear forces that are structured very differently. Russia’s forces emphasize land based strategic missiles (ICBMs) while the United States is more reliant upon submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). This difference in emphasis is likely to continue in future planning and deployments. Both Washington and Moscow have committed themselves to future nuclear modernization plans that will replace or refurbish each arm of the venerable nuclear triad of land-based, sea-based, and airborne launchers. This situation results partly from bureaucratic inertia, but also from the conviction that a three-legged deterrent force provides more flexibility for military planners and a more complicated attack surface for hostile forces.

During and after the Cold War, efforts to rationalize American nuclear war plans ran up against competing priorities among policymakers, military planners, and expert analysts inside and outside government. American declaratory policy for deterrence was not always consistent with employment policy for the use of nuclear weapons, should deterrence fail. Broadly speaking, alternative models for nuclear employment policy included: (1) a force sufficient to inflict unacceptable retaliatory destruction on the society of the attacker; (2) option one plus forces and command systems for flexible targeting and escalation control, including some options for lower-yield weapons; (3) options one and two plus counterforce superiority relative to any prospective attacker; and (4) options one and three, plus antimissile defenses capable of damage limitation even against major attacks.

There were variations around these themes, but the evolving American nuclear targeting plan—the single integrated operations plan (SIOP)—was put into effect by target planning staff matching available weapons to prospective targets. After all was said and done, no credible plan for anything resembling “victory” at an acceptable cost was available to American or Russian nuclear planners.

Strategic analysis sometimes fails to recognize that deterrence depends for its success, not only on the cleverness of the deterrer, but on the psychology and strategic thinking of the object of deterrence threats. States are not billiard balls, and leaders’ estimates of what will deter their competitors are often wide of the mark. Intelligence estimates may err in their assessments of enemy intentions, capabilities, or both. History, before and after the beginning of the nuclear age, is littered with deterrence failures based on faulty intelligence, biased images of other states and their leaders, and many varieties of motivational bias and wishful thinking. States’ perceptions of one another’s military-strategic doctrines are subjected to mirror imaging or other sources of distortion.

In the case of Russia, for example, some contend that Russian military thinking treated nuclear weapons as just another point on a linear continuum of violence, and not as a nonlinear departure from military rationality. However, at their historic meeting at Reykjavik in 1987 Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev agreed that a nuclear war could not be won and should never be fought. This long road to nuclear deterrence sobriety for both the US and Russia was not achieved without some dangerous detours like the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) and Able Archer (1983). Future nuclear powers, without the benefit of Cold War experience, may behave less prudently.

This familiar Russo-American strategic nuclear choreography is going to be shaken up by twenty-first century political and technological realities. The rise of China as a major nuclear power is no longer in doubt. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is modernizing its land and sea-based nuclear-missile forces and bombers, developing the potential for a regionally dominant and globally competitive nuclear arsenal. This decade, the United States may face two nuclear peers in Moscow and Beijing. Such a development raises important questions about American nuclear force sizing and modernization. Both the quality and quantity of nuclear weapons, of various ranges and yields, will be up for discussion among American defense planners. The United States and its allies will also have to consider how China’s rise affects American and allied conventional force modernization and the United States’ ability to counter China’s regional anti-access/area denial capabilities.

A regional conventional war involving Chinese and American forces also raises the possibility of nuclear escalation. Another issue is the maturing alliance between Russia and China. Although not necessarily in agreement on all strategic issues, Moscow and Beijing concur in their desire to push back against the rules-based international order favored by the United States. On the other hand, China’s nuclear rise may encourage existing Asian powers like Korea and Japan to augment their conventional forces with nuclear weapons.

New technologies are certain to stress prior assumptions about the stability of nuclear deterrence based on assured retaliation. Three examples are instructive. First, because hypersonic weapons do not fly a ballistic path that allows for reliable detection and tracking, the time and ability required to determine a target does not, at present, exist. Second, drone swarms are also a threat as adversaries develop innovative ways to employ them for offensive or defensive purposes. Drone attacks against command-and-control systems or mobile launch systems like transporter erector launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines. Third, nuclear coercion could be preceded or accompanied by cyberattacks against military communications and command and control systems or other military and civil infrastructure. Cyber-attacks could also serve as advanced tools for disinformation, propaganda, and other deceptive “like-war” tools.

If the rise of China and the uncertain implications of new technologies do not offer enough concern for Russo-American arms control regimes, there is the additional challenge of deciding “how much is enough” for American defense preparedness and for nuclear weapons specifically. The American defense budget dwarfs all others at a time of considerable stress in the US economy.  For a country with global commitments, military preparedness does not come cheap. The nuclear arsenal is also expected to provide extended deterrence for allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Without the American nuclear “umbrella,” some allies might consider more seriously the option of developing their own nuclear arsenals.

In Asia, this risk is especially salient in view of China’s expanding capabilities and assertive behavior. Regardless of the perceived strategic necessity for various forces or weapons systems, competing demands from domestic priorities will place limits on future defense budgets. Difficult trade-offs within future budgets is certain as the United States is expected to face a prolonged recession over the next few years. With regard to nuclear forces, expenditures for deployed and reserve weapons and launchers are only part of the equation. Also demanding of resources are the components of the nation’s nuclear infrastructure, including weapons laboratories, and defense contractors who support the Pentagon’s research and development.

Too much complacency exists about the pace of nuclear proliferation. Admittedly, some of the most pessimistic predictions made during the Cold War about the eventual spread of nuclear weapons were wide of the mark. Far fewer nations became nuclear powers than expected. It would be wrong to infer from the relative slow growth in the number of nuclear powers that we have reached a condition of stasis with respect to the entry of new countries into the ranks of nuclear weapons states. A nuclear Iran, for example, would almost certainly lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons states across the region.

Another case is the already crowded nuclear competition in Asia, including Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. A more expansive China or a more nuclear-assertive North Korea could increase popular support in South Korea and/or Japan for their own national nuclear force, despite the historic nuclear allergy of Japan and the defense guarantees to both countries provided by the United States. In addition to the challenge of new nuclear weapons states, there is also the lesser, but still dangerous, possibility of non-state actors acquiring nuclear weapons or materials.  The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons shows widespread recognition by governments of a continuing nuclear danger. But none of the current nuclear weapons states shows any interest in dismantling their nuclear arsenals. A number of existing nuclear powers are increasing their arsenals in size and quality (Russia, China, North Korea).  Therefore, arms control, both “old style” and “new age,” remains relevant and necessary.

With all of the challenges described above, we return to the question offered in the title of this article; is a new start for New START possible? The number of variables than may shape the answer to this question are numerous and unpredictable, leaving these two analysts uncertain of the New START Treaty’s future and the role of nuclear arms control in a world of increasing insecurity. Our greatest fear is that China’s growing nuclear arsenal may make New START and any other nuclear arms control efforts untenable as nuclear parity between Russia, China, and the United States leads to uncertainty and the desire to begin growing strategic nuclear arsenals. With no easy solutions, the United States is certain to see troubled days ahead.

A New START for New START? The Future Russo-American Nuclear Arms Control was originally published on Global Security Review.

Efforts by the United States Intelligence Community (IC) to apply Cold War strategies to new age threats and non-state actors have largely failed, leading to adaptations and evolutions within the IC to understand and address new threats in new ways. The Soviet Union and the Islamic State terror organization pose very different problems for intelligence professionals to solve. As the world moves further into the information age, the IC as a whole is evolving to meet new threats with analytical, technical, and ideological developments designed to foster the flow of information, rather than compartmentalize it into Cold War-era boxes and stovepipes.

This article outlines the differences between nation-states and non-state actors, including their structures, threats posed by them, and IC adaptations necessary for global social progress. The first step in this process is to define and differentiate nation-states and non-state actors, followed by an outline of IC approaches to each type of threat, intelligence paradigm developments, and potential enhancements to future U.S. intelligence operations.

Nation-States vs. Non-State Actors

Nation-states need structure to function in the world, while non-state actors do not. Foreign intelligence organizations of nation-states are designed to function as parts of their nation’s governmental structure in some form or way, which makes identifying them and addressing potential threats from them a verifiable process. Nation-states are also generally held accountable for the actions taken by government associated organizations and departments, which in part dictates the field of activity that any given nation-state can and will be willing to conduct at any time. International repercussions from the global community—including sanctions and/or military retaliation—are a strong deterrent for most national governments that prevents them from taking certain courses of action and from many forms of conduct.

The Russian Federation, for instance, took control of Crimea in a deception-based maneuver that resulted in virtually no combat, intentionally avoiding any conventional military retaliation from the West.¹ Chinese military expansion into the South China Sea, while creating tension in the region, does not involve war or international conflict either.² Still, when faced with being charged with cyber-attacks on the United States, the Chinese Government remains unwilling to admit that it was even conducting cyber operations,³ for fear of international repercussions—including the potential for conventional war. These examples show that while nations are willing to act, they are generally unwilling to engage in major conflict or start a war. Non-state actors do not have this problem. Instead, many thrive on the prospects of international conflict and warfare.

Non-state actors are generally defined by their lack of structure, asymmetric tactics, and unique operational procedures. Any entity not acting on behalf of or directed by a nation-state is a non-state actor, including drug cartels, terrorist organizations, hackers, sex trafficking organizations, international corporations, vigilantes, bounty hunters, and even basic criminals and individual citizens of the world. They can, therefore, only be defined in the category of not being a nation-state or directed by a nation-state, and not defined in respect to what they actually are.⁴ Some non-state actors have an organizational structure, such as corporations, and can be addressed like that of a nation-state, or targeted similarly for espionage or protection purposes. However, most non-state actors that pose threats to nation-states do not have a structure that is easily identifiable, definable, or targetable.

Operational procedures and tactics of non-state actor threats also tend to be less symmetrical than nation-states, and almost every non-state actor is unique in its specific operational procedures and techniques. Each threat must be evaluated and addressed individually for threat mitigation and/or intelligence operations because of this uniqueness. Conducting counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State, for example, cannot be based on counterterrorism operations against Hezbollah, simply due to the differences in each organization’s unique strategies, culture, location, and patterns, despite both of them being terrorist organizations. Non-state actors require a higher degree of analysis to understand each threat completely before actions are taken, unlike nation-states where threats posed are understood, partly based on comparable historical analyses, international law, the economic prosperity of the nation, and regional stability.

Nation-States and Non-State Actors: Similarities and Differences

Nation-states and non-state actors are similar in the respect that they are mainly people led by other people, so understanding the behavioral psychology of people is a useful approach to understanding either type of threat. Both require resources, including people, to present a threat. Terrorist organizations like the Islamic State rely primarily on weapons and recruiting to grow in numbers and capabilities—the larger they are, and the more weapons they have, the more significant of a threat they can potentially pose. Nation-states like Russia and China rely heavily on other resources, such as energy, food, water, and other types of wealth-creating capital. Organizational utilization of those resources also differs, as a nation-state’s resources are used mostly for ensuring economic stability for its citizens and creating capital wealth to raise international prestige and rapport. At the same time, terrorist organizations have somewhat different concerns.

Terrorist organizations’ primary concern for resource utilization is being able to kill as many people as possible with as much media attention as possible, to boost recruiting efforts, and spread their ideology across the world for purposes of regional or global domination.⁵ Public support matters to both nation-states and non-state actors as well, since increasing one’s reputation, both locally and around the world, can increase the range of actions that are acceptable to conduct. Russia’s invasion of Crimea was not retaliated against, mainly because of the way the issue was presented to the public,⁶ just as media manipulation by the Islamic State was primarily responsible for its swift expansion and success in recruiting.⁷ Both of these entities swayed public support in their favor to help achieve their goals.

Despite several similarities between nation-states and non-state actors, there are many factors that simply only apply to one or the other. International law does not regulate or affect non-state actors or their actions since they inherently cannot be a party to any international agreement or treaty for any reason. Nation-states, on the other hand, face severe repercussions by openly violating any international laws or signed treaties, or if they are caught violating either of these clandestinely. Nation-states also have massive infrastructures for large scale weaponry and economic operations as well. In contrast, hostile non-state actors do not have access to the required materials and/or facilities needed to establish such features. There are no terrorist organizations with a space program, for example.

This means that any satellite operations conducted by terrorists, be it for cell phone communications or cyber operations, must go through a nation-state’s infrastructure. Nation-states like Iran who are state sponsors of terrorism and also have a space program, therefore, create a very unique problem.⁸ Non-state actors cannot by definition have a ballistic missile program either, since this also requires an infrastructure that only a Nation-State can achieve, but they can still acquire and use such weapons through allies, theft, or the black market. If the Pakistani Taliban or the Haqqani Network, for instance, were to seize Pakistan’s missile facilities, they would immediately become the world’s first terrorist organization with nuclear Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles,⁹ which makes potential instability within the Pakistani Government of paramount international concern.¹⁰

Technological innovations generally also require a Nation-State’s infrastructure with research facilities, scientific education programs, and a lot of money, limiting this combat multiplying factor to nation-states as well. Just as with missiles, however, non-state actors may still acquire technological innovations, including medical devices, weapons, computer hardware/software, communications equipment, or espionage devices by other means. In free societies like the United States, this problem is multiplied by readily available technological innovations to the public. It has resulted in the evolution of technologically based non-state actors like the hacktivist collective, Anonymous, presenting new and unique threats to nation-states and the world.¹¹

Free societies have also provided other non-state actors, like terrorist organizations, with technological infrastructures that can be used for cyber operations and tactical social media coordination for paramilitary operations, including terrorist attacks, such as happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Paris, France. The fact remains that non-state actors, while very different in nature from nation-states, have overlapping features, and unique features, and each threat must be approached by intelligence professionals uniquely and individually to achieve success. Intelligence methods and operational tactics must evolve continuously in the face of perpetual technological and ideological evolutions around the world to maintain global stability and human freedom, and the American intelligence infrastructure represents the best hope for achieving this goal in today’s world.

Intelligence Community Adaptations: Killing the Cold War Mindset

Intelligence operations and focuses throughout the Cold War were primarily concerned with threats posed by nation-states, and in particular, the Soviet Union and its Communist allies. The intelligence infrastructure of the United States that was created and grown during this era of Nation-State threat priorities stimulated the creation of extensive analytical techniques and operations explicitly designed to counter threats from foreign nations and their organizations. While terrorism and other non-state actors existed, they were not prevalent and did not receive enough attention to warrant extensive development of Non-State Actor threat mitigation techniques until relatively recently.

Intelligence representatives developing the intelligence infrastructure that exists today can target specific organizations within specific Governments for intelligence and counterintelligence operations. The ability to understand a structured organization made this possible and facilitated expansive espionage operations, including penetration operations and counterintelligence missions, to deceive the enemy and/or deny them information. The ability to identify the enemy and define it is the primary reason this type of analysis and intelligence operation targeting nation-states is so successful. The Soviet Union was an obvious target. Its intelligence, political, economic, and military organs also were definable, and therefore targetable. Even the tactics and procedures used by the Soviet Union could be documented over time, providing a standard analytical framework to base decisions on, with known variables regarding how specific parts of the Soviet Union’s organizations function and operate. Traditional threats posed by nation-states and individuals, before the onset of the information age, pale in comparison to the threats that exist today, threats that cannot be defined, controlled, and some that simply cannot be defeated, only mitigated.

Moving from the Cold War era into the information age has changed everything and created a large number of asymmetrical threats, not just from asymmetrical non-state actors, but from nation-states as well, transforming the entire global threat landscape forever. Intelligence professionals in today’s world must deal with issues and threats that have never existed, and therefore without historical data to reference when attempting to analyze them. Technological proliferation is the primary cause of this new threat landscape, technology in nearly every area of human life that is causing third world threats to be armed with first world weapons and technologies to aid their cause.

Transnational terrorist networks conducting cyberspace operations and coordinated paramilitary attacks on civilian populations have created global fear in addition to the physical threats that exist in the world, multiplying the overall effect of any attack they conduct. Many nation-states have also adopted non-traditional techniques and weapons, creating entirely new potential combat zones in space and cyberspace. The United States IC in today’s world must address a more significant number of potential and real threats, simultaneously, than have ever existed at one time in human history, and the freedom of the entire human race is at risk.

Intelligence professionals in the information age are no longer only trying to discover the number of tanks or missiles that an adversarial foreign nation has operational at a given time. They are instead assessing a multitude of threats without historical precedence that change the entire analysis and many which act as force multipliers, including but not limited to:

• The number of supercomputers any potential adversary has access to
• The speed of an adversary’s most advanced processor
• Whether or not terrorist organizations have access to weapons of mass destruction, how they might use them, and where they could turn to get them
• Regional and global economic stability
• Human rights violations by nation-states and non-state actors
• Weaponized space assets, potential and known, and their impact(s)
• Prospects for human expansion into space, including colonization, celestial militarization, and planetary resource exploitation
• Robotics technology proliferation
• Military and intelligence-related nano-science applications
• Global and regional drug and sex trafficking operations
• Human impacts on the Earth’s natural cycles
• The radicalization of violent homicidal terrorists who gain a foothold in failed states and spread their ideology throughout cyberspace

These are just some of the things that occupy the focus of the IC today, and each one has its own unique properties and operational requirements. Individual entities and organizations within each classification also contain their own unique features and operational tactics. The evolution apparent in the IC is as complex and expansive as the evolution from a paper letter to a personal computer hard drive with a terabyte of data storage. Growth does not make something inherently more effective; however, so another focus—on intelligence procedures themselves—is also necessary for the IC to appropriately adapt to current and future threats in the world.

Intelligence Evolution in the Information Age

Many of the challenges of today have not been addressed before in history and must be analyzed and understood before they can be addressed. Some threats are similar to threats of the past, however, and understanding history can help analysts learn to analyze more effectively, through the study of human nature, warfare, and intelligence operations throughout history. Communism is an ideology, and the Kharijite ideology that spurs the majority of radical Islamic terrorists into action is also an ideology. While there are few similarities between the ideologies themselves, the practice of combating an ideology on a global scale is not new to the United States or the IC. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed from economic and social disparity. The Communist ideology lost popularity, however, due to disillusionment within its believers, not the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Even Communist China does not follow the original Marxist philosophies of early communism. It has adapted to a Capitalistic type of communism in the face of widespread disillusionment with the Communist ideology. The Kharijite ideology can be fought the same way – through intentional and extensive operations aimed at disillusioning the believers and potential believers of radical Islamism. Cyberspace and economically challenged regions in the world are the primary recruiting grounds for radical terrorist organizations, which means the IC can target these same areas to eliminate the potential for recruitment, with aggressive, offensive counterintelligence operations in cyberspace in addition to economic interventions to educate and elevate the populations of regions with economic and social disparity. Ironically, eliminating social and economic inequality in critical areas of the world could collapse radical Islamic terrorist ideologies in much the same way that increasing economic and social disparity collapsed the Soviet Union and led to the disillusionment of Communism.

Lack of education and the censorship of information are significant factors that contribute to social disparities in the world, and therefore need to be countered with information proliferation and education. Part of this requires technological proliferation to increase the ease of access for societies to information through the internet, and potentially even Government sponsorship of satellite communications and internet capabilities for nation-states that lack the potential for such a technological infrastructure by themselves. Because this increases the risk of these technological assets being used by non-state actors for other purposes, increased intelligence operations, specifically in cyberspace, must accompany these information expansions.

In addition to these longer-term strategic economic and social methods to tear down the radical Kharijite ideology that fuels the majority of global Islamic terror, enhanced paramilitary operations and covert actions are needed to simultaneously combat physical terrorist elements already established around the world. With combined international cybersecurity efforts to ensure cyberspace as a place for global information proliferation and education, along with robust offensive counterintelligence, covert action, and paramilitary efforts to combat global terrorism and other physical Non-State Actor threats, world peace has its first opportunity in recorded history to be achievable and maintained. The challenge now is for Governments and people to realize this, and act accordingly to secure the future for humanity and the world.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any U.S. government agency, including but not limited to the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, or the Marine Corps. Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of any U.S. government entity.

¹ Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, “Crimea and Russia’s Strategic Overhaul,” Parameters 44, no. 3 (2014): 81-90.

² Miroslaw Przygoda, “China – Russia, a Strategic Political and Economic Axis of the Contemporary World,” Varazdin Development and Entrepreneurship Agency (VADEA) (2015).

³ Cuihong Cai and Diego Dati, “Words Mightier than Hacks: Narratives of Cyberwar in the United States and China,” Asian Perspective 39, no. 3 (2015): 541-553.

⁴ David Moore, Sensemaking: A Structure for an Intelligence Revolution, (Washington D.C.: NDIC Press, 2011).

⁵ Andrew Terrill, “Understanding the Strengths and Vulnerabilities of ISIS.” Parameters 44, no. 3 (2014): 13-23.

⁶ Thomas Grant, “International Dispute Settlement in Response to an Unlawful Seizure of Territory: Three Mechanisms,” Chicago Journal of International Law 16, no. 1 (2015): 1-42.

⁷ Rohan Gunaratna, “A New Threat Landscape in 2015,” UNISCI Discussion Papers 37 (2015): 9-13.

⁸ Dan Dickerson, “Iran Would Strike First,” Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International 16, no. 3 (2010): 30-36.

⁹ Paul Kerr and Mary Nikitin, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues,” Current Politics and Economics of the Middle East3, no. 2 (2012): 313-351.

¹⁰ Kerr and Nikitin, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons.”

¹¹ Brian Kelly, “Investing in a Centralized Cybersecurity Infrastructure: Why “Hacktivism” Can and Should Influence Cybersecurity Reform,” Boston University Law Review 92, no. 5 (2012): 1663-1711.

From Missiles to Microchips was originally published on Global Security Review.

The passage of the 1947 National Security Act (NSA 1947) can be rightly identified as the causative agent of what became known to history as “The Revolt of the Admirals.”  At the same time, the organization that might have served as the nerve center for such a result, the General Board of the Navy (and where it had been the center for several low-level revolts in the past),  played a decidedly muted role in all that went on.  Instead, the newer and more powerful office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OpNav) served as the locus for what became a major civil-military relations crisis in 1949.^[1]

The General Board, once mighty until World War II, and now rejuvenated by the appointment of the retired Admiral John Towers might easily have then faded again into insignificance once Towers retired for good and Forrestal “fleeted up” from Secretary of the Navy (SecNav) to the new post of Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) per the National Security Act of 1947.  That it did not is due to several factors:  the new CNO, the new SecNav, and the continuing service of Towers’ handpicked lieutenants (especially Admiral “Soc” McMorris and Captain Arleigh Burke). Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz retired nearly at the same time as Towers.  His replacement, Admiral Louis Denfield, had been serving as Chief of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (BuPers).

Denfield might have reflected his position on the value of the General Board in a report in late 1945 for Forrestal delineating flag officer billets for the post-war Navy.  Denfield recommended retention of the General Board with a complement of seven admirals.   In another sign of his probable esteem and empathy for the Board, Denfield recommended upgrading the chairman’s rank from vice admiral to full admiral.  This was precisely what Forrestal did when he brought Towers in to serve as chairman.  The tone of the communications between the Board and the CNO became more cordial than it had been under Nimitz.   The Board was to do some of its most interesting work under Denfield until the fight over naval aviation in 1949 witnessed the departure of SecNav John Sullivan (formerly Assistant SecNav) and removal of Denfield.^[2]   At the same time, the General Board decreased in size slightly, shrinking down to seven members (including only three admirals) with Towers’ departure.

A scan of the subjects assigned for the Board to study in 1948 reveals its new scope and charter.   Beginning in January, Sullivan referred to it several very important policy topics, including:  “Functions of the Navy in support of a National War Effort,”  “Composition and cost of Reserve Fleets,” and revision of the “Naval Policy.”^[3]   Just as in 1922, the SecNav had turned to the General Board for an overall policy document under the new defense regime instituted by the NSA 1947.  The idea of potential war, too, was very much on the minds of naval leaders at the highest levels, although it was at odds with the continuing demobilization and costs for maintaining some of the ships of the huge World War II legacy fleet in various states of readiness.

By the summer SecNav ordered another naval policy review, but more importantly, Sullivan turned to the General Board for a long-range recommendation for the design of the navy for the next decade (1951-1960).   Arleigh Burke undertook the task of overseeing this study.   The process had actually started the previous November under Towers with a top-secret memorandum to the CNO that in turn had been stimulated by Joint Strategic Plans Committee (JSPC) seeking the Board’s “…views…as to the Naval Operating Forces which will be required in Fiscal Year 1955, particularly as such information pertains to naval aviation.”^[4]   Thus the Board became involved in two of the most important naval issues of the day—the Navy of the future and the role of naval aviation in that future.  The initial report by Burke in November 1947 emphasized that “The only major war likely to occur between now and fiscal 1955 is a war instigated by the USSR against the United States.”

Burke went on to emphasize his (and presumably the other Board members’) view of what navy that threat should be designed for:  “The USSR will not intentionally risk such a war until she is fully prepared to fight with, in addition to her land forces, an air force, a submarine force, and possibly a guided missile force capable of delivering an effective surprise attack on industrial and military centers within the continental United States, our principal advance bases, and our lines of communications as the initial, hostile act.”   The report also emphasized that the Board should use “history as a guide,” especially recent history—thus the notion that a Pearl Harbor type attack using new modern missiles, possibly on submarines or other ships, must be considered in construction and building decisions.

It made sense that naval aviation figured prominently as one means to keep this threat as far as possible from vital targets overseas as well as in the continental heartland.   Just as important, however, were US submarines, both in the attack and as radar pickets.  This view of future warfare helps understand better the selection of Denfield, a submariner, as CNO and the alignment of Burke and the Board in this matter.^[5]   At the same time, the Board was receiving updates from JCS staff papers (presumably those of the Joint Strategic Plans Committee) “each Friday.”^[6]

By June 1948 the analysis had expanded and included political and economic factors as well as military—each area getting its own enclosure.  The study’s scope reminds one of George Kennan’s work.  Possibly Burke or other members had read Kennan’s famous 1947 article on “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in Foreign Affairs.^[7]  The study emphasized the ongoing concern over defense unification as a means to highlight the need to resolve these disputes to better formulate strategy:  “The controversy which accompanied the attempts to merge the armed forces has not died out.  The paramount interests of national security demand an atmosphere of harmony and unanimity of purpose in the military establishment and allow no room for unhealthy service jealousies and for bickering and jockeying for favored position.”  The authors found that Europe and the “Middle East” were the two most “critical points of contact in a war with Russia.”^[8]

Enclosure D of the study discussed the Navy’s “contribution” inside a “harmonious” military establishment.  The study made several predictions, including an estimate that the USSR would have atomic bombs by no later than 1952 ready for use in war and that the US would not initiate a “preventative war.”^[9] In a later section it discussed the most urgent threats to aircraft carrier-centered forces as aircraft and submarines.  It also emphasized the need for a large flush deck carrier to allow for the operation of larger aircraft to carry atomic bombs as well as to intercept attacking aircraft at better stand-off ranges (presumably due to atomic bomb-equipped aircraft from the USSR).   Other “lessons learned” from World War II appeared in the form of an emphasis on anti-submarine warfare to counter a Soviet unrestricted submarine war similar to that of the Germans as well as the seizure of advanced bases on the periphery of the USSR to project power against the Soviet industrial base.^[10]

The completed top-secret report was then forwarded to Secretary Sullivan with the recommendation to provide copies to the secretaries of Defense (Forrestal), the Army, and the Air Force.  At the same time, it included a withering critique of the readiness of all US military forces to engage in a war with the USSR, focusing in particular on the poor readiness as a result of budget economies that had left the US Navy bereft of ASW craft, submarines, aircraft, and with only eleven attack aircraft carriers.   It also emphasized the delineation of “roles and missions” at Key West the year before had done little to solve the problem of inter-service rivalries and dis-unity of command.^[11]  Forrestal undoubtedly agreed with almost everything in the report, but one can see how these positions, especially the Board’s assessment of abysmal military readiness (among other things), might rub members of the Truman administration the wrong way.

Forrestal’s demise—and his protection as SECDEF of the General Board—was not long in coming.   During the 1948 presidential campaign, it leaked out that he was willing to serve in a subsequent democratic administration.  His principled opposition to further cuts and subordination of the Navy to a centralized, Army-Air Force controlled defense establishment further alienated him with those services and the President.  In March 1949, after his unexpected re-election, Truman replaced Forrestal with Louis Johnson as SECDEF.^[12]  Johnson believed in economizing via reliance on air power to justify cuts. With Forrestal out of the way and an election mandate from the American people for Truman, Johnson adopted the attitude of the Army and Air Force vis-à-vis naval aviation and the Marine Corps.  During the civil-military conflict known to history as “The Revolt of the Admirals” Johnson informed Admiral Richard Connolly:

“Admiral, the Navy is on its way out.  Now, take amphibious operations.  There’s no reason for having a Navy and a Marine Corps.  General Bradley…tells me that amphibious operations are a thing of the past.  We’ll never have any more amphibious operations.  That does away with the Marine Corps.  And the Air Force can do anything the Navy can do nowadays, so that does away with the Navy.”^[13]

However, the General Board was not the lightning rod at the center of this major policy dispute in peacetime in the Navy—even though it supported Denfield and a strong role for naval aviation in the current defense structure.  Shortly after helping write the “Ten Year” study, Burke left the Board for command of the cruiser Huntington.  McMorris left as chairman the month prior.  The Board was now under the leadership of the two-star admiral, although his heir apparent RADM Allan McCann could be categorized as an “up and comer.”^[14]   Because of the perceived shortcomings in the original “Ten Year” study, another was commissioned for the Board shortly after Burke’s departure in an effort to come up with a compromise.  The resulting study had no more effect outside the Navy than its predecessor and might be regarded as the last national policy study the Board performed.^[15]

Burke’s work for the General Board attracted high-level attention and in late 1948 Denfield decided to use his policy expertise inside CNO, moving him from command and making him head of a new organization, OP-23, devoted exclusively to unification policy issues.^[16]   Burke’s OP-23 became the lightning rod instead of the General Board during the Revolt of the Admirals in the summer and fall of 1949.   This episode in naval history has been dealt with at length elsewhere, but its impact on the existence of the General Board, which was not heavily involved, was significant.  For SECDEF Johnson, the Navy’s resistance to a strategy that relied almost entirely on airpower for power projection in a possible nuclear war with the USSR had created a deep rift.   Additionally, conflict overuse of the B-36 bomber versus a “supercarrier,” or both, also underlay the conflict.^[17]

The series of events characterized as “revolt” started not long after Johnson took over from Forrestal. Johnson initiated a series of actions that caused an eventual house-cleaning of the top leadership of the Navy—both civilian and senior officers—although it is unlikely that this is exactly what Johnson intended. The first to go was Secretary John Sullivan, who resigned shortly after Johnson canceled the contract to finish building the supercarrier United States –capable of launching nuclear-armed Navy bombers—in April 1949.[18]  Sullivan’s replacement, Francis P. Matthews, was a political appointee with no experience with the Navy.  He shared Johnson’s policy views on defense and the Navy’s subordinate role to the Air Force in strategy.^[19]   Matthews took charge during a period when Congressional opinion of the Navy had been damaged by the perception of official Navy misbehavior, if not misconduct, in a series of hearings on the B-36 before Congress.   Burke and Vice CNO Arthur Radford worried about this perception and organized a series of hearings that fall (1949) to try to redeem the situation.  At the same time, Burke worked under increasingly difficult conditions when McCann was pulled from the General Board in June and assigned as Navy Inspector General, his charter being to investigate Burke, among others.^[20]

The crisis came to a head when Radford and others began testifying to Congress early in October.  Their reasoned testimony, supported by Burke’s office despite the seizure of its files, impressed Congressional observers and did much to retrieve the Navy’s reputation with the branch of government that could hurt it most.  The climax came on 13 October—ironically the day celebrated as the US Navy’s birthday—with Denfield’s testimony.  The CNO made an impassioned appeal for a robust defense policy not based solely on the “self-sufficiency of air power….”^[21]   Johnson and Matthews interpreted this as disloyalty and removed Denfield as CNO not long after, although Denfield remained on active service.  Forrest Sherman, who had stayed in the background on the unification debates, became the CNO.  It has been argued by some historians that Radford’s, Burke’s, and finally Denfield’s actions saved naval aviation (and possibly the Marine Corps as well).   However, at the time this was far from certain.   By June 1950 the Navy’s component of aircraft carriers was on the blocks to go as low as six on active duty with only one on station in the Western Pacific when the forces of North Korea invaded South Korea.   This war—which confirmed predictions made in the Board’s 1948 study—had as big a role in saving naval aviation and the Marine Corps, and a large conventional Navy for sea control, as did the actions of Navy officers during the “revolt.”^[22]

The General Board might be regarded as collateral damage due to the “revolt.”  However, it is not completely clear if the revolt was anything more than a contributing factor rather than the proximate cause of the Board’s disestablishment at the beginning of 1951, more than a year later.  Little in the minutes and hearings of its activities references the momentous events in Congress, Burke’s OP-23 and with the CNO.   During August 1949 the Board did look at two potentially controversial topics—one on the Army’s “General Staff System Applicability to the Navy.”   Army Colonel Kilbourne Johnston of the Office of the Army Comptroller and “leading expert” on the Army system testified to the Board on 9 August.  In his opening comments he said of the Board:

“In my organization studies extending over a period of seventeen years, the Navy General Board has always appeared to me to be the epitome of the pure general staff theory.  I think you will see as I develop my subject that in my own mind at least there is a grave doubt whether or not the Navy does not have a General Staff much closer to that conceived of by the Germans in the early part of the nineteenth century [than the Army]…” ^[23]

Unfortunately, Secretary Matthews was not present to hear this rather astonishing judgment by an Army officer on the value of the General Board.  The Board recommended that a specialized and centralized general staff corps not be adopted and that the current OpNav organization be retained without major changes “…until the full impact of the implementation of the National Security Act Amendments of 1949…on the Department of the Navy is known….”  It also emphasized that this system resulted in “a high degree of civilian participation” but neglected its own significant role in assisting that participation.^[24]  Better reflecting Matthews’ concerns was another hearing two days later on “Organization of the Navy Department” with testimony by two “management engineers”—although it was clear that this hearing was closely related to whatever findings might emerge from the general staff discussions.   Most of this discussion centered on how general staff functions and operations of the fleet had been concentrated under Admiral Ernest King as an expedient measure in wartime.^[25]

However, as the crisis of the revolt came to a head in September the General Board record was silent.   It turned in its report on the General Staff on 19 August and the next set of minutes does not appear until 19 September 1949, after Denfield’s testimony was complete.  The record simply picks up at the point with “business as usual,” announcing that VADM Harry W. Hill had reported as chairman.   Hill had extensive combat experience in command of amphibious operations in World War II from Tarawa to Okinawa and had recently formed the National War College in Washington as its first commandant.  His first order of business was to have the Board consider questions submitted to it by the Secretary of the Navy, although the record is silent about what these questions were.  Perhaps they involved the recent unpleasantness with CNO.^[26]   These questions might be the reason that at the same time the Board began to plan for various field trips to naval bases and facilities from Key West to the West Coast in October.  The record never specifies what its answers were, or even if they were forwarded to the Secretary—but if they were about recent events they did not cause Matthews to dissolve the Board.  The hearings reflect no perturbations in routine either; on 4 October a secret hearing was held about integrating guided missiles onto surface ships and then much of the remainder of the month was spent on the aforementioned field trip.^[27]   In mid-November the Board picked up its routine again, looking at the “Relationship of the importance of the various budgetary programs to maintain the most effective Navy.”  It would work this project until March of the following year.  At this time the Board consisted of VADM Hill, two rear admirals, two captains (one as secretary), and one Marine colonel.^[28]

The demise of the General Board came not long after, quietly and without fanfare, much in the same way, the General Board had been created in 1900.  At first, things seemed back to “ops normal,” but before long the Board’s old enemies inside the OpNav organization again made an issue of fleet design oversight, claiming that the Ships’Characteristics Board (SCB) inside OpNav obviated the Board’s historic role in prioritizing and reviewing ship designs.  RADM G.H. Fort recommended that the current way of doing business, as ironed out by Towers nearly two years before, be retained.^[29]  This may have proved the proximate cause for both CNO and SecNav to reexamine the necessity for the Board.  Its policy work could be done by RADM Burke’s Strategic Plans Division inside OpNav (OP-30), the SCB could handle its ships’ characteristics function, and the reconciliation of materiel ends, ways and means was now the province of a new Material Review Board created in December 1950.^[30]  The “Revolt” had removed any powerful partisans like Denfield and Sullivan who may have protected the General Board, to say nothing of Forrestal (who may have committed suicide).  It simply had too many enemies in OpNav, which now controlled the Navy absolutely.

* * *

On 16 January 1951 CNO Admiral Forrest Sherman informed Fort of the “dissolution” of the Board by “appropriate changes to U.S. Navy Regulations, 1948.”  No reason was provided.   SecNav Matthews apparently did not even tell the Board directly of his decision, although perhaps he had delegated the CNO to make this decision in the previous August.   Too, the Korean War might have saved naval aviation and the Marines, but wartime had never served to highlight the utility of the Board while at the same time highlight the importance of OpNav.^[31]  The Board passed quietly into the mists of history, like a ship cutting through an empty patch of ocean.

[1] For a complete history of the General Board, and especially its civil-military relations with various administrations, see the author’s  America’s First General Staff:  A Short History of the Rise and Fall of the General Board of the Navy, 1900-1950 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017). This article comes from research for that work, especially chapter 9.

[2] National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Record Group (RG 80), CNO Correspondence, BuPers (Denfeld) to CNO (Nimitz), 27 March 1946, “Flag Billets Proposal for in the Post War Navy.”

[3] NARA, RG-80, Proceedings and Hearings of the General Board (PHGB) serial list 1948, these encompassed, respectively, serials 315, 316, and 317.

[4] General Board (GB) serial list 1948, serial (321); Arleigh Burke papers, Naval Historical and Heritage Center (NHHC) 21 November 1947, “Naval Operating Forces – Fiscal 1955,” 1.

[5] Burke papers, 21 November 1947, “Naval Operating Forces – Fiscal 1955,” 1-2, 4-5.

[6] From 20 Sept 47 General Board Procedures, Burke Papers, Division III, page 5.

[7] George F. Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” by X. Foreign Affairs (July 1947): 566–82.

[8] GB 425, 25 June 1948, “National Security and Navy Contributions Thereto for the Next Ten Years:  A Study by the General Board,” from the Burke Papers, Enclosure C (Military), 1-3.  This study was also known as serial 315.

[9] Ibid., 1-3, and Enclosure D, “Concepts of War and Navy Contributions,” from the Burke Papers, 1-2.

[10] Ibid., Enclosure D, “Concepts of War and Navy Contributions,” from the Burke Papers, 7, 56.

[11] Ibid., Enclosure C, “Conclusions,” 1-9.

[12] Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals, 174-175.

[13] Cited in Baer, One Hundred Years, 313.

[14] GB ML 1948; Barlow, 165; Carl LaVO, Pushing the Limits:  The Remarkable Life and Times of Vice Admiral Allan Rockwell McCann(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013), 200-202.  McCann became Inspector General of the Navy during the “Revolt of the Admirals” in 1949.

[15] GB 325, “Navy Contributions to National Security, revision of 315 and continuous study,” 6 October 1948.

[16] Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals, 164-169.

[17] Barlow, The Revolt of the Admirals, chapter 9.

[18] Barlow, 186-191.

[19] Barlow, 206.

[20] GB ML 1949; McCann was reassigned by Matthews on 20 June; see also LaVO, Pushing the Limits, 206-211.

[21] Barlow, 247-254.

[22] Barlow, 269-273; Baer, 318-320.

[23] PHGB 9 August 1949, “Organization of U.S. Army General Staff.,” 1.

[24] GB 142EN2 (7-49), 19 August 1949, “Applicability of the General Staff System to the Navy, Study of,” 1-2.

[25] PHGB 11 August 1949, “Organization of the Navy Department.”

[26] GB minutes 19 August 1949; for Hill see http://www.navysite.de/dd/dd986.htm (accessed 8/30/2016).

[27] PHGB 4 October 1949, “Guided Missles;” GB minutes September and October 1949.

[28] GB minutes November 1949 through March 1950.

[29] GB 155EN2, G.H. Fort to VCNO 11 October 1950, “Establishment of Shipbuilding and Conversion Programs and Ship Characteristics therefor,” 1-3.

[30] Baer, 301; SecNav Correspondence, SecNav to  CNO and Chief of Material, 28 December 1950, “Material Review Board.”

[31] See Kuehn, America’s First General Staff, especially chapters 5 and 9.

The Revolt of the Admirals: The Perspective of the General Board was originally published on Global Security Review.

The concept of information operations (IO) has entered into our everyday lexicon without a precise definition.

Any stated definition of information operations is relative to the context. IO remains a complex subject, and the field is evolving. This article hopes to provide greater insight and clarity into the definition of IO, and also identify existing and potential shortfalls.

Regardless of context, information operations maintain some nearly-universally-agreed-upon characteristics. An information operation is a campaign that is dedicated to obtaining a decisive advantage in the information environment. Some conflate IO with mere cyber or influence operations, but these are one of many capabilities that IO practitioners—both civilian and military—use to gain an edge in the information environment.

This messaging effort has multiple components to ensure the desired effects are delivered in the most advantageous way possible—sometimes using influence and other times the intention is solely to send a direct, clear, and concise message. Take, for example, a scenario involving displaced persons. The influencing elements are sending out pamphlets intended to induce the displaced persons to return home, but civil liaison elements are building permanent structures that will incentivize displaced individuals to remain. It is the IO practitioner’s job to de-conflict this disjointed message. An IO practitioner should be working in tandem with other capabilities to shape the information environment.

The Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was a strategic use of IO.

The Russian government sought to both influence the U.S. presidential election, and undermine the Democratic systems. State-sponsored Russian actors hacked into Democratic National Committee servers and gained access to a key Democratic advisor’s emails. These hackers than used third-party intermediaries to release derogatory or potentially damaging information through WikiLeaks. Furthermore, Russian actors focused on psychological operations disseminated propaganda and disinformation via social media. An IO practitioner would, typically, be the one that coordinated this effort.

However, the definition of IO can change based on the context in which the term is used. According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report from 2018, a government entity, IO is sometimes conflated with Information Warfare (IW). The report says that “Information warfare takes place at the strategic level, while information operations (IO) involve using various information-related capabilities to implement the strategy.” However, unlike IO, IW is not defined in any contemporary U.S. military doctrine, nor does the U.S. military doctrine specify IW “takes place at the strategic level.” Surprisingly, no recent U.S. Government publication specifies there is a distinction between IO and IW; the U.S. Government should clarify the difference—if one exists.

The U.S. military has its own distinct view of information operations.

The 2016 U.S. military doctrine defines IO as “The integrated employment, during military operations, of information-related capabilities in concert with other lines of operation to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own.” Per this doctrine, IO is focused on coordination and synchronization “during military operations.” IO is absent real deliverables, it relies on other capabilities to deliver effects. As previously stated, influence and cyber operations are just two of many information-related capabilities.

The more antiquated IO doctrine distinguished between information warfare and information operations. In a military publication from 1999, IO is defined as “…actions taken to affect adversary information and information systems while defending one’s own information and information systems.” The publication addresses IW as “Information warfare (IW) is IO conducted during time of crisis or conflict (including war) to achieve or promote specific objectives over a specific adversary or adversaries.” While these definitions appear to be out-of-date, they provide substantially greater clarity and understandability than contemporary military doctrine (IW was removed from military doctrine in 2006).

In the private sector, the definition differs from the military with actual deliverables. Facebook Security defines “as actions were taken by organized actors (governments or non-state actors) to distort domestic or foreign political sentiment, most frequently to achieve a strategic and/or geopolitical outcome.” Facebook’s definition appears to conflate IO with mere influencing instead of producing a specific desired effect.

The nonprofit global policy think tank Rand Corporation defines IO as the following: “Information operations and warfare, also known as influence operations, includes the collection of tactical information about an adversary as well as the dissemination of propaganda in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent.” This definition poses a number of challenges because—again—much like the private-sector Facebook definition, it is focused on “influence operations,” which are, in actuality, only part of a true IO campaign that is synchronizing and coordinating a range of influence, cyber, and psychological elements. RAND’s definition also conflates IW with IO. For its part, the CRS report attempts to distinguish IW from IO, something U.S. military doctrine fails to do.

The absence of a clear definition could lead to a strategic disaster.

Making things even more complicated is the fact that these nuanced definitions also face international interpretation, and the United States’ foreign competitors may define or conceptualize information operations differently. This means matching their capabilities that much more difficult, making any discussion over a strategic competitor’s (e.g. Russia) IO capabilities an apples-to-oranges comparison.

It is now more important than ever to develop a clear and concise understanding of information operations as a concept. Unfortunately, this paper may fall short because of the complexity and evolving nature of IO. In the short-term, the U.S. Government could re-adopt the out-of-date, yet more concise definitions for IO and IW.

Updating these definitions would ensure that IO is properly understood, conceptually and practically speaking. Until then, with each new IO definition, there will be a nuanced complexity that only serves to confuse rather than clarify the ever-changing nature of information operations.

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Understanding Information Operations & Information Warfare was originally published on Global Security Review.

In response to the shift towards Indo-Pacific regional concerns, the US Army and the Department of Defense began developing multidomain operations as a broad warfighting concept in 2016. Relying on a “third offset” that acknowledges the Army will “operate on congested, and potentially contaminated battlefields while under persistent surveillance, and will encounter advanced capabilities such as cyber, counter-space, electronic warfare, robotics, and artificial intelligence,” the goal is to develop information advantage that allows American forces to operate with greater speed and efficiency.

The problem with this information-dependent future is that adversaries are already working on asymmetric ways to disrupt and defeat this approach. Thus, we see five problems for the Army specifically, and also the overall joint force’s plans for a future where multidomain operations is the warfighting concept around which land forces and the joint force deter or defeat China and Russia: (1) understanding that the US is already at war with Russia and China; (2) multidomain operations rely on artificial intelligence; (3) the US is falling behind Russia and China in the development of robotic and autonomous systems; (4) China and Russia are leveraging Americans’ social media information presence to manipulate truth; and (5) adversaries are seeking to deny the US access to the electromagnetic spectrum.

The State of Play

Starting with background information is instructive. First, the shift to multidomain operations comes in response to the Asia-Pacific pivot, which the Obama administration and subsequent administrations began. To meet the needs of the pivot, the DoD authored the Air-Sea Battle concept (2013), which largely excluded the Army and incentivized the service to rethink its role in future conflicts.

[bs-quote quote=”The United States\’ first challenge is understanding that the country is already at war with Russia and China.” style=”default” align=”left” color=”” author_name=”” author_job=”” author_avatar=”” author_link=””][/bs-quote]

Thus, when the 2017 National Security Strategy refocused on peer competition, the Army was already in the midst of developing a new warfighting concept designed to defeat Russia or China in a large-scale conventional operation. Multidomain battle (2016) became multidomain operations (2018) and eventually became joint all domain command and control within the joint community. The Army, however, continues to discuss multidomain operations, which it sees as distinct from joint all domain command and control.

The US Army’s Field Manual 3-0, Operations (FM 3-0), currently in coordination, introduces multi-domain operations as the warfighting concept under which land forces will defeat Russia, China, or any adversary in large-scale conventional operations. The draft version describes multidomain operations as “how army forces enable and operate as part of the joint force against threats able to contest it in all domains” with a focus on creating and exploiting advantage across the continuum of conflict—integrating capabilities across multiple domains.¹ This definition is similar to the Joint Staff’s definition of joint all domain command and control, which seeks to connect all military services’ sensors into a single network.

As Chris Dougherty has recently observed, the idea that all sensors can be connected to all shooters and that information advantage can be achieved once and for all are both unrealistic. Enough sensors connected to enough shooters during a period of enough advantage is the Army and the Department of Defense’s goal. Or, as General Glen Vanherck termed it, we need to focus on continually building the bike even as we ride it, and roads continue to change.

It Is More than Great-Power Competition

The United States’ first challenge is understanding that the country is already at war with Russia and China. Some within the military and foreign policy establishment attempt to coopt the joint-phasing construct, which includes six “phases” of conflict—laid out in Joint Publication 3-0 —as a way to easily distinguish between peace and war. However, this model was designed to arrange operations, not serve as a model for when war begins and ends.

The Joint Staff has since reduced the focus on this phased approach to operational planning with its 2017 and 2020 revisions because too many planners and warfighters viewed the phases like a step-by-step process that, once completed, returns the United States to a state of peace. The perception that the military would seamlessly progress from Phase 0 to Phase V and back to Phase 0 was an easy mental model to follow but is contrary to the approaches of China and Russia.

Despite the Joint Staff’s effort to reshape thinking within the Department of Defense by recasting conflict as phase-less in recent revisions, this tidy conception of warfare persists. Jake Bebber is correct when he writes, “Yet it is here, in Phase 0, that adversaries are conducting military operations designed to deter and ultimately defeat the United States, whether in cyberspace or the broader ‘informationization’ of warfare. It is an era of persistent conflict.” Whether it is Russian hybrid warfare or Chinese informationized warfare, neither adversary sees a clear distinction between war and peace. We are already at war.

Contrary to the American view, the current era is not competition but war between the United States and China/Russia. This war is primarily in the information environment and cyber domain that it is all too frequently dismissed as competition when it is not.

Failing to Lead in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Second, multidomain operations rely on artificial intelligence as an enabling technology to speed the process of collection, sense-making, and sharing of information—transforming Army information processing. According to Nicholas Chaillan, the  United States has already lost the race with Russia and China in artificial intelligence.

As Paul Scharre observes, technological advances often lead to economic and military advantages. Europe’s lead in the Industrial Revolution made it possible for European nations to control over 80 percent of the world’s landmass by 1914. If the United States falls further behind in the development of artificial intelligence, it may lose a military conflict with China.

The lack of moral and legal norms that challenge American efforts to weaponize artificial intelligence also creates an advantage for China and Russia that bleeds over into their ability to collect superior adversary data used to train artificial intelligence and machine learning systems.

Another area where American perceptions differ greatly from those of the Chinese and Russians involves the “human in/on the loop” question. The hand-wringing Americans engage in over the need for human control of military artificial intelligence does not occur in China or Russia, where there is a greater willingness to rely on autonomous systems in virtual and physical environments.

When it comes to measuring the success of multidomain operations, improving the speed and accuracy of decision-making is critical. More than any other service, the Army needs its lower echelon forces to operate independently, especially when communications and connectivity are highly contested.

The Chinese and Russians are well aware of the Department of Defense’s information dependency with the development of multidomain operations and joint all domain command and control. As a result, peer adversaries prioritize their OODA loops and the prevention of American effects/influence on their decision-making.

[bs-quote quote=”Neither China nor Russia has the same conception of war and peace as the United States—leaving the Army, and the joint force, at a distinct disadvantage.” style=”default” align=”left” color=”” author_name=”” author_job=”” author_avatar=”” author_link=””][/bs-quote]

To deter or defeat American action, both adversaries actively develop artificial intelligence capabilities to penetrate our systems. For the offense, attacks must only work once, where the defense must work repeatedly. When the challenges discussed in this section are taken in aggregate, they present a serious challenge to American success in successfully incorporating artificial intelligence into the systems that will ensure multidomain operations are successful.

Robotic and Autonomous Systems

Third, the United States is falling behind China and Russia in the development of robotic and autonomous systems, which are also critical to the success of multidomain operations. Adversaries field systems range from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms to various types of battlefield drones.

For the United States, similar systems are not fully autonomous, requiring human control and data analysis. This limits the ability of such systems to serve as force multipliers. For adversaries, robotic and autonomous systems are indispensable as artificial intelligence develops to the point where turning over deadly force to robots is feasible. Whether the United States fields “killer robots” is yet to be seen.

The Army’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Strategy (2017) outlines five major objectives: increase situational awareness, lighten soldiers’ physical and cognitive workloads, sustain the force with increased distribution throughput and efficiency, facilitate movement and maneuver, and protect the force. The service is developing systems that can support all of the five objectives as a single unit or well-coordinated group but not serve as autonomous killer robots.

These robotic and autonomous systems need to be enabled by numerous data capture and tracking systems such as smart storage media, wearables, real-time visibility, and conditions monitoring. Additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, data science, and predictive analysis play a central role in enabling such systems.

What is often under-examined is the data storage, management, and manipulation requirements for these systems, which is staggering and a critical target for adversaries. Undoubtedly, Chinese and Russian offensive operations are and will seek to penetrate American systems before an attack.

Joint all domain command and control and multidomain operations depend on rapidly collecting, sharing, evaluating, and applying vast quantities of data. The technologies under development by the United States are highly dependent on data to function, leaving them susceptible to the “5 Ds” of offensive cyber operations: deny, degrade, disrupt, destroy, or deceive.

Overcoming the moral/legal, data management, and cyber challenges will make or break the utility of robotic systems for the Army and the joint force—and it all occurs before the first shot is ever fired.

Collateral Data

Fourth, China and Russia are effectively using the openness of American social information systems to create expansive disinformation and misinformation capabilities that are specifically targeted at not only the American people but soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians. These capabilities enable adversaries to obfuscate, hide, and create information, making it difficult or impossible for Americans—and service members—to separate truth from fiction.

As Guy Schleffer and Benjamin Miller highlight, adversaries can also attack the United States by achieving political effects through social media platforms, where they achieve a fait accompli by exploiting “vast amounts of data about people.” Russian misinformation in the 2016 election is but one example of the successes such efforts yield. Moreover, campaigns targeting service members are also an adversary tool that will grow in use in years to come as adversaries map the social networks of service members and develop individual profiles for exploitation.

Adversaries engage in a wide variety of experimentation to better shape the views of service members. But just as the platforms’ internal tools for refining results are increasingly driven by machine learning, we expect infiltration of information ecosystems by texts which are being dynamically generated and refined by sophisticated algorithms.

With data theft and sales widespread, there is an ability to micro-target anyone, anywhere, at any time, as Cambridge Analytica demonstrated. Contrary to popular belief, avoiding social media does not provide immunity from these efforts because friends, family, acquaintances provide sufficient data and associates that levers of influence are available to those interested in and committed to using them.

Admittedly, many soldiers do not realize how information operations are maturing in the era of ubiquitous information technologies. In short, information is always-on, ubiquitous, porous, and presents dangers for soldiers.

The Ether Is Everywhere

Fifth, the success of multidomain operations is also under threat because of American dependence on the electromagnetic spectrum, which adversaries are actively seeking to deny the United States. Whether it is situational awareness, deception, denial, or destruction, freedom of action in the spectrum is foundational.

American victory in future conflicts depends on information advantage by collecting and processing an overwhelming amount of data. Equipping every vehicle and soldier with sensors that can feed data into artificial intelligence-enabled networks that organize, filter, and share the “right” information with decision-makers is a central aspect of multidomain operations—with its dependence on fidelity electromagnetic spectrum sensors on platforms. This all occurs in an era where “every asset is a sensor” is central to our new warfighting concept.

As the network of sensors required for joint all domain command and control and multidomain operations is developed, the United States can use different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to see targets from different aspects and signatures. For example, a vehicle or artillery park may be camouflaged in one part of the spectrum (infrared), but radiofrequency or visual sensors may detect them. This ability to analyze a target in multiple parts of the spectrum reduces the effectiveness of deception.

Beyond preventing adversary electromagnetic spectrum jamming and spoofing, distilling, correlating, and presenting data in a useful format is the biggest challenge. Again, all of this depends on high-fidelity artificial intelligence to break down the data for decision-makers in a tactically relevant time. Failing to meet this time requirement surrenders the initiative to an adversary who can perform this feat.

Succeeding allows the United States military to think in terms of kill webs, which allows multiple sensors, shooters, and command and control nodes to prosecute an engagement. This capability creates resilience and allows commanders the flexibility to engage with various shooters, ensuring the most effective weapon system engages the target.

[bs-quote quote=”Fundamentally rethinking when and how war is fought is necessary. Anything less will leave the United States defeated before it ever recognizes war has begun.” style=”default” align=”right” color=”” author_name=”” author_job=”” author_avatar=”” author_link=””][/bs-quote]

Multidomain operations require sensor systems of the future with capabilities that include multi-spectral sensing on a single platform or as part of a system of systems. There is a need to pick out a signal of interest from the background clutter and identify the emitter. The Russians, masters of electronic warfare, and the Chinese are all developing capabilities to thwart American success in this area, which makes the success of multidomain operations challenging.

The challenge for the Army and the joint force is overcoming Russian and Chinese electromagnetic spectrum jamming and spoofing efforts. The Russian Army, for example, is the best in the world at both and will certainly further develop those capabilities as the Department of Defense fields capabilities designed to enable multidomain operations.

Recommendations

The move away from irregular warfare and toward large-scale conventional operations and multidomain operations is certainly the right move for the Department of Defense and the US Army. Field Manual 3-0, Operations, the Army’s new multidomain operations-focused doctrine, is a forward-looking attempt to meet the challenges of an operational environment that is at an inflection point. Developing a warfighting approach that gets inside China and Russia’s OODA loop is certainly understandable.

However, neither China nor Russia has the same conception of war and peace as the United States—leaving the Army, and the joint force, at a distinct disadvantage. Overcoming these shortcomings requires the following changes.

First, senior leaders must understand the United States is already at war with China and Russia in the cyber domain and information environment. Incorrectly describing war as “competition” leaves American forces to operate below the level of conflict, which signals a lack of resolve. Adversaries are specifically watching for the level of force employed in response to their attacks so they can evaluate the importance of interests at stake.

Second, the Army needs to shift from a focus on cyber security to a focus on mission assurance. Cyber security is neither necessary nor sufficient for the success of multidomain operations. Yet, as shown above, it serves as a pillar for success across a range of multidomain operations capabilities. This is a mistake that China and Russia are exploiting.

Third, the Army (and other services) must train soldiers in adversaries’ information operations methods and tactics to influence service members. With China and Russia developing more effective ways to use information against American service members, failure in the information environment is certain to have implications in the cognitive and physical domains.

For the United States to succeed in multidomain operations, merely developing and fielding new technologies is insufficient for American success. Fundamentally rethinking when and how war is fought is necessary. Anything less will leave the United States defeated before it ever recognizes war has begun.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ alone and do not represent the views or policies of the United States government, the United States Department of Defense, the United States military, the United States Department of the Army, or the United States Army.

¹ FM 3-0, Operations is planned for public release in the summer of 2022. The document may change before release.

The Department of Defense’s Multidomain Operations Challenge was originally published on Global Security Review.

“Nuclear weapons seem to be in almost everybody’s bad book, but the fact is that they are a powerful force for peace. Deterrence is most likely to hold when the costs and risks of going to war are unambiguously stark. The more horrible the prospect of war, the less likely war is. Deterrence is also more robust when conquest is more difficult. Potential aggressor states are given pause by the patent futility of attempts at expansion.”

John Mearsheimer, “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War,” The Atlantic, August 1990

Since the detonation of Little Boy and Fat Man ended the war in the Pacific, nuclear weapons have occupied an increasingly critical place in international politics. The weapons captured both awe and terror across the globe, sending policymakers and scholars scrambling to discover how to properly manage and exploit this new power. Through no small effort, the world has not only seen an era without the further use of these weapons in war but one without great power conflict—a precarious period of relative peace through deterrence.

However, to pretend that such peace was born automatically is folly. Such logic runs counter to humanity’s history of conflict and warfare. The current international landscape is changing greatly; as the world slides towards a multipolar world and return to great power politics, it must re-address the notion of nuclear conflict and deterrence in the modern world if peace is to be maintained. The use of nuclear weapons has become increasingly likely in the modern-era due to two primary reasons:

1. Nuclear multipolarity and state competition, resulting in an increasing number of competing, nuclear-armed states with historical tensions, leading to instances of escalation and the security dilemma between multiple actors.
2. Nuclear modernization and proliferation, including the development of low-yield, counterforce nuclear weapons that can be utilized without threatening a state’s survival in a limited nuclear conflict, particularly when parity is not present at all levels of nuclear escalation.

The possibility of escalation to a limited nuclear conflict at the tactical level, utilizing low-yield, counterforce nuclear weaponry is a plausible reality. Low-yield, counterforce nuclear weapons can be utilized in a limited fashion against an adversary’s military forces without threatening the survival of either state—particularly when there is a significant disparity between the nuclear capabilities of the states involved.

Mearsheimer states that within the social sciences, “those who venture to predict… should, therefore, proceed with humility, take care not to exhibit unwarranted confidence, and admit that hindsight is likely to reveal surprises and mistakes.”^[1] Within political sciences, the sheer number of unpredictable variables makes any prediction anything but certain. It is, therefore, more prudent to analyze the changing landscape of the international nuclear system and identify the challenges and risks that threaten to upend the relative peace that has been maintained for the last 70 years. To preserve and enhance peace within the international system, it is critical to evaluate these potential risks in an unbiased manner while exploring all plausible possibilities. The scope of this piece is primarily limited to intentional inter-state nuclear conflict, and will not address threats such as accidental war, nuclear terrorism, or other related matters.

Competition Between Nuclear States

The structure of the international system has been one of conflict and anarchy for the entirety of human history. The world has never known an era without warfare; states compete to maximize their security and ensure their survival against one another. But in the modern era, this competition may have far more dire consequences. States now yield weapons with unimaginable destructive capabilities and are capable of delivering them at unprecedented speeds. While these weapons almost certainly cause states to act more cautiously, it does not undermine the competitive nature of international relations; states will still compete and seek primacy over one another, securing their own interests and security. While possessing nuclear weapons may raise the risk of failure and serve as a strong deterrent to other states, the weapons by themselves are not enough to prevent this competition between states. In some cases, they may go as far as to instigate it as states seek to ensure their security against another’s nuclear capabilities.

To properly evaluate this concept, a baseline in neorealist theory should be established. Neorealism holds five relevant truths. First, the international system is one of anarchy, with states as the primary actors, competing against each other without a higher ruling authority. Of these states, great power states are the most critical and relevant actors. Second, states will inherently possess some military capability to secure their power and security, a capability that can be both defensive and offensive. Third, a state can never be truly certain about another’s intentions; if a rival state is building troops or weaponry, one can never be certain whether it is intended to be offensive or defensive, despite what they may claim. Fourth, a state’s basic drive is for survival and sovereignty. Fifth, states are rational actors who seek to survive and ensure their security within this anarchic system.^[2]

The primary difference between nuclear weapons and other weapons of war is not their destructive power, but the ability to inflict this damage at unprecedented speeds, and to inflict it against an adversaries’ homeland without having to first engage their military and defensive forces.^[3] If a state utilizes its nuclear arsenal against an opponent’s cities, the opposing side’s conventional forces and defenses are irrelevant. A state can be losing a conflict and decide to destroy the opposition with a speed unprecedented in history by escalating to nuclear conflict, completely bypassing the military and defenses of the opposing state.^[4] Hence, the basis of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is one of mutual vulnerability, with both states accepting that the other could cause immense damage to their own at any time if they utilize nuclear weapons, and thus deciding to avoid it. This has been the backbone of nuclear weapons policy since World War II. The idea is that nuclear weapons ultimately mitigate conflict and escalate the cost of nuclear war to one that is far too high to pay, “war becomes less likely as the cost of war rises in relation to possible gains.” The fear of a retaliatory response deters the aggressor from initiating nuclear conflict in the first place. Wars occurring between nuclear states are likely to be limited in scale for fear of pushing one past the nuclear brink—if they occur at all. The cost of a miscalculation that leads to nuclear conflict is a far greater risk than the same miscalculation with a conventional army.^[5]

However, the idea that actors would accept this vulnerability runs contrary to previous assertions made within the theory of neorealism. If it is accepted that states seek to preserve their sovereignty and security, parity seems to be an unlikely position for a state to find acceptable. The security dilemma highlights some of these challenges; when a rival state rises to the point where it can threaten another’s security, this state will bolster its own military strength and try to prevent any threat to its own security and sovereignty. Sometimes this may escalate into an arms race and ultimately into conflict.^[6] In this instance, accepting that another state can eliminate your own with the press of a button fails to be acceptable. The very existence of these weapons is incredibly threatening to other states, and a state will act in whatever way necessary to mitigate that threat and ensure their own security. This concept has led to cases of nuclear proliferation in the past. For example, Pakistan built nuclear weapons in response to India’s nuclear test, and North Korea built nuclear weapons to ensure their regime’s survival and security against powers like the United States.^[7]

Policymakers attempted to fix this problem during the Cold War with a secure second-strike capability. It was argued that if a state could still retaliate after suffering a fatal nuclear blow and deal the same fate to the aggressor, it would deter against preemptive strikes and force states to accept this mutual vulnerability and forego competition. As such, states sought to ensure their retaliatory capabilities through a combination of “hardening, concealment, and redundancy.”^[8] Stationary weapons silos and shelters were hardened to improve survivability, submarine-based systems stayed concealed and mobile, and a massive number of nuclear weapons were produced and globally dispersed.^[9]

However, this system was never truly accepted. If states had accepted this mutual vulnerability, the massive spending on modernization would fail to make sense. Even when these states claimed to accept MAD, their actions said otherwise. While the second-strike theory may have enhanced deterrence, it certainly did not stop states from competing to gain the nuclear edge over each other. Gavin asserts that even when quantitative parity was accepted between the two states, they still sought a qualitative edge over the other to secure nuclear primacy.^[10]

The United States still pursued the ability to win a nuclear war with the USSR instead of accepting the status quo as expected and sought to be able to defeat the USSR’s second-strike capability. The U.S. engaged in programs to modernize its nuclear weapons, invest in missile defense technologies, nuclear submarine tracking, command and control technologies, as well as sought geopolitical advantage. Both states actively pursued the ability to outperform and outgun the other, to gain the edge and retain the capability to win a nuclear war.^[11] The basic competition of realism did not change with the introduction of nuclear weapons. While states acted more cautiously, they still competed to secure their advantage and their security within the international system.

As time moves forward, the security imposed by this has become increasingly fragile. Even during the Cold War, the U.S.  possessed a remarkable intelligence capability that would have been able to effectively find and target both stationary and mobile Soviet nuclear weapons. Long and Green authored an exquisite piece discussing now-declassified information that demonstrated our intelligence capabilities to track down enemy missiles with efficiency and precision via improvements in acoustics, ocean surveillance, and SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) technologies, capabilities that have significantly improved to this day.^[12] Improvements in the targeting, accuracy, and reprogramming of weapons have further improved U.S. capabilities to destroy hardened targets. Elimination of fratricide from multiple strikes via these improvements has also allowed the U.S. to target and strike a hardened silo multiple times within a few seconds of each other. Lieber and Press claim that a strike against 200 Soviet silos utilizing two weapons per target in 1985 would have left approximately 42 silos still standing, while a similar strike today would destroy all 200.^[13] Second-strike capabilities have become increasingly vulnerable in the modern age.

This isn’t to say that nuclear weapons have no deterrent effect—the lack of nuclear conflict during the Cold War certainly can stand testament to that. Instead, the point is that this deterrent is not as simple of a system as was thought, or perhaps wished; states will still compete, go to war, and may even engage in a nuclear conflict. The security dilemma was never truly mitigated and is still alive and well within the international system. But nuclear weapons can raise the cost associated with conflict and cause states to act more cautiously. Attempting to destroy a state’s entire second-strike capability is a major act and not one to be taken lightly. While a state may decide to attempt this if it was prudent to ensure its own security, it would certainly be an extreme situation in which few would likely be willing to bear. While states still engage in this strategic competition and attempt to gain the upper edge in a nuclear exchange, escalation to this level still seems incredibly unlikely due to the costs of failure.

Further, it is worth considering that the defending state may panic and retaliate upon the signal of the enemy launch, fearing for the security of its own second-strike capability. During the Cold War, policymakers steered away from these reactions, relying on the survivability of their second-strike systems to dissuade the benefits of preemption and secure deterrence. If faced with this situation in the modern era, knowing these systems may not be as secure as they once were, it would be difficult to judge what an actual reaction would be. This uncertainty may actually improve the traditional deterrence model, as states are fearful that their adversary will be pushed into a “use it or lose it” mentality. But this traditional view is primarily applied to a preemptive, large-scale strike against another state. Limited nuclear warfare may be a far more realistic scenario to consider. Limited nuclear warfare could be conducted in a manner that does not threaten a state’s immediate survival, and hence would not warrant an all-out nuclear response in retaliation. The concern of these attacks escalating to this level of large-scale nuclear conflict is a real one, but the initial use of a nuclear weapon at this limited level is a far more palatable option for governments to utilize.

Nuclear Proliferation and Multipolarity

Nuclear weapon use in a limited manner may be a serious threat, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the changing state of the world into a multipolar nuclear order may encourage this. Despite tensions between the U.S. and USSR, they were ultimately able to manage this competition in a bipolar nuclear world; this competition for advantage and security ended with the eventual collapse of the USSR. The security dilemma ran its course without the use of nuclear weapons, and the U.S. rose to become the hegemon of a unipolar world. However, in a multipolar nuclear world, the challenges faced previously are significantly exacerbated. Currently, the nine known nuclear-weapon states are the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea.^[14] Strategies that worked in a bipolar world may not be as effective in the modern landscape, thus preventing the failure of deterrence—and the subsequent use of a nuclear weapon—may be more challenging than before.

The most recent nuclear state, North Korea, is one of the most troubling in the current group of nuclear states. North Korea is one of the world’s poorest states, facing harsh sanctions and isolation from much of the international community. Yet, despite the hardships, poverty, and poor economy of this autocratic state, it managed to defy the nonproliferation regime and create a fully operational nuclear arsenal.^[15] Pyongyang is not bashful about its willingness to use its weaponry either, stating that it will use its weapons to “reduce the U.S. mainland to ashes and darkness.”^[16] Such a clear security threat may increase proliferation elsewhere in response. Allison calls this the “nuclear cascade,” and suggests that if a state as weak and isolated as North Korea can defy the non-proliferation regime, other states are likely to follow suit.^[17] If the United States is incapable of preventing such a clear security threat, why would Tokyo and Seoul rely on Washington to defend them in the face of a nuclear threat? Japan already has the capability to build nuclear weapons, possessing well-developed uranium enrichment and missile programs that could allow Japan to rapidly create a credible nuclear weapons program to defend itself and its national interests without the United States. According to The Council on Foreign Relations, there are thirty states that have the technological ability to quickly build nuclear weapons.^[18]

While Pyongyang claims offensive intentions, it is incredibly unlikely to attempt to use its nuclear forces offensively against the United States. Doing so would be an act of suicide, the disparity between U.S. and North Korean forces is far too great. Instead, these weapons were more than likely obtained for defensive purposes. Pyongyang may not be able to destroy the United States, but it can ensure its own sovereignty. Forcibly trying to topple the Kim regime could escalate into the use of nuclear force if Pyongyang got desperate, and a strike designed to eradicate their nuclear weapons would again invoke this “use it or lose it” mentality. While Pyongyang may not be able to destroy the U.S. with its capabilities, it can undeniably cause immense harm to the US. It could cause even greater harm to smaller, closer countries such as U.S. allies Japan and South Korea. Knowledge of this is a strong deterrent against U.S. intervention, allowing Pyongyang to carry on less cautiously without fearing foreign intervention. The creation of this deterrent may have effectively ensured the sovereignty of the Kim regime for the time being, and they are unlikely to relinquish this guarantee. The establishment of this deterrent highlights some of the challenges in the modern nuclear era. North Korea’s outright defiance of the nonproliferation regime sends a signal that other states can build a nuclear capability as well and that such a force may be an effective way to guarantee their sovereignty against the Western world.^[19]

Proliferation to autocratic states is a cause for concern, primarily because they are considerably less stable than democratic states and may be more willing to utilize a nuclear weapon. The inherently volatile nature of these regimes poses a significant challenge. North Korea has a very poor and impoverished populace, held under authoritarian rule. Regimes such as these are not known for their longevity and stability. The threat of regime change and revolt from within is a realistic consideration with autocratic states. If this occurred, it could result in the loss of a nuclear weapon, or their domestic use to quell a rebellion.^[20] It could also escalate into conflict as Chinese and U.S. forces both seek to secure their nuclear assets and end up in conflict with each other. China would certainly not accept U.S. forces along the Yalu river, and both would want to immediately seek to ensure the stability of Pyongyang’s nuclear assets.

Autocratic states could also safely assume that Western powers would prefer it if they were a democratic government friendly to the West. With the international liberal orders push for global democracy, autocratic rulers are likely to fear Western interference. After Pyongyang’s recent success, a nuclear weapons capability may appear to be an effective way to prevent Western interference and ensure its sovereignty.

With smaller autocratic states, the constant external and internal threats to the stability of their regimes breed paranoia and volatility. Leading government officials tend to be promoted based on loyalty rather than competence, and disagreement or discontent with the dictator may be punished harshly, stifling progress and ingenuity. These regimes also tend to have strong military leadership directing the country. Pakistan is notable in this regard, where the military maintains significant control over the government and has a history of instigating a military coup when they dislike civilian leadership. Pakistan has had four separate military coups since its creation, with military dictators constantly consolidating their power into the executive branch.^[21] Military leadership is far more likely to see nuclear weapons use as a viable option, which increases the instability of nuclear autocratic regimes even further. Civilian leadership has arguably been a key factor in preventing nuclear use thus far. Military officers often possess a different mindset and attitude on the subject than civilian leadership due to their career path. During the Cold War, there were numerous instances where the Joint Chiefs of Staff were far more willing to utilize nuclear weapons in a preventive war and were reined in by U.S. civilian leadership.^[22]

Throughout the Cold War, there were numerous false alarms; equipment detected missile launches that did not exist, drills were confused for real launches, and communication cut-offs and the “fog of war” nearly led to nuclear use.^[23] If faced with similar threats, it is less likely that an autocratic state will respond in such a level-headed manner. With shorter-range nuclear weapons, this could be exacerbated. These states are less likely to have a robust, survivable nuclear arsenal. If a state’s nuclear arsenal is threatened, it is likely to take action to ensure its survival or use. Without having the same geographic separation that the U.S. and USSR did, several states today rely on shorter-range weapons, like short-range missiles and multi-role fighter/bomber aircraft. Whether these weapons systems carry nuclear or conventional payloads may be unknown; being forced to make a rapid decision to respond to a potential threat may push a state over the edge to ensure its security.^[24]

Particularly concerning, at least in regard to stability, is the smaller size and the heightened vulnerability of many arsenals compared to other states. The multipolar nuclear order lacks the same levels of parity both quantitatively and qualitatively that were present in the Cold War. The number of weapons between states varies significantly. While exact numbers are typically classified, experts have estimated a range varying from approximately 20 warheads in North Korea, to around 6,000 for both the U.S. and Russia.^[25]  Destroying all the nuclear weapons in North Korea is significantly easier to do than performing the same action against the U.S. or Russia, and this may be especially true with an even newer autocratic state that develops a brand-new nuclear capability. The parity dilemma further extends to conventional capabilities. A state with inferior conventional capabilities such as North Korea compared to the U.S. or Pakistan compared to India, may feel pressured into utilizing, or at least threatening, to use its nuclear capabilities to make up for its inferiority. If a nuclear-armed state lacks an effective conventional response option and is faced with a crisis that threatens its security, it may decide to escalate with a limited nuclear strike to preserve its integrity and security.

The primary barriers to the use of nuclear weapons in the Cold War were the second-strike capability and the threat of mutual destruction. But as has been discussed, this second-strike may not have been as effective as previously thought and is particularly less effective in the modern age. Such disparity between arsenal sizes eliminates many other concerns with a nuclear first strike. The chances of eliminating a second-strike capability are significantly higher in many circumstances, and the abolition of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty has made the idea of intercepting any surviving nuclear weapons much more likely. While ballistic missile defense is a fickle and inconsistent technology, the prospect of defending against a few surviving second-strike weapons is much more realistic than trying to defend against a general nuclear war.^[26] The disparity between military strength has led to conflict through all history, and this has not changed with nuclear weapons. If a state thinks it can successfully engage and win in a conflict that would bring great benefit and little harm to itself, the threat of this occurring is great. As Thucydides cited the Athenians telling the Melians during the Peloponnesian War, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Faced with this fact, the receiving state may very well utilize its weapons as discussed to prevent the loss of its second-strike. The knowledge of this possibility enhances deterrence, but with great disparity, it may not be enough. If the aggressor feels that it can effectively defend against such a limited strike, or that it would be able to conduct the strike prior to the launch of enemy weapons, it may decide to do so. The varying distances between states and shorter-range weapons that can be utilized in the modern era make a difference as well. Nuclear rivals like Pakistan and India can strike each other much quicker than the U.S. and USSR could strike each other in the Cold War. This gives even less reaction time to make such a large decision and increases the chance that a disabling first strike could be pulled off.

The security dilemma is notable to mention here as well; the U.S. and Russia currently enjoy a considerable nuclear advantage over all other states. But another state building their nuclear deterrent or conventional forces, and hence threatening another’s superiority as happenstance, is likely to escalate into an instance of the security dilemma. In a multipolar world, this is especially relevant. Competition between two states is much simpler to manage, but when reacting to one state, a state may create escalation between several states simultaneously.^[27] The recent abolition of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty serves as a useful example. The U.S. and Russia found this to be an acceptable state for several years; however, China’s rising conventional and nuclear power, including the development of intermediate-range weapons, may have threatened this. Russia, considering China’s proximity and fearing for its own security, hence develops intermediate-range weapons of its own to match this threat, pushing the U.S. to respond in kind as well.

Bracken expands on this concept, explaining how decisions targeted towards one state could affect several, and the challenges this brings to nuclear strategy.^[28] In his example, the U.S. deploys a precise conventional missile capability designed to penetrate and destroy North Korean and Iranian nuclear infrastructure on its submarines, a move being considered at the time Bracken wrote The Second Nuclear Age. However, this capability has been condemned by China, for fear that it will have the added effect of threatening their own nuclear deterrent. China responds to these deployments by remodeling its deterrent and deploys a more mobile nuclear force that is harder for the U.S. to track and destroy. In turn, this agitates India and threatens their security, so they decide to respond to the increased Chinese nuclear threat by improving their own nuclear forces.

Any development to India’s nuclear doctrine or weapons program will surely affect Pakistan, and will surely escalate the already strenuous tensions between the states. The result is a cascading, delicate dynamic that is significantly more complex than the comparatively simple bipolar relationship deterrence theory was founded under. The security dilemma and realist competition between states aren’t so easily managed in a multipolar world and may very well escalate out of control. When a proper second-strike capability is not always present or a nuclear strike is unlikely to threaten the survival of a state and will serve its interests, the threat of such acts occurring is heightened. The multipolar nature of the world and challenges presented by the fog of war may make nuclear escalation in a crisis significantly more likely.

Multipolar competition has become all too apparent in the modern-day. Both China and Russia have been increasing their military might and seeking to expand their influence, challenging U.S. hegemony. The return to great power politics makes the more precarious state of the multipolar nuclear order more dangerous. Some comfort can be taken in the notion that the ideas and strategies that deterred strategic nuclear warfare in the past are still in place. A strategic strike against a nuclear powers’ cities would be counterproductive and almost certainly result in likewise retaliation, an unacceptable consequence and a strong deterrent in the majority of situations. But this strategy does not prevent a state’s aggression and expansion elsewhere. While the U.S. may be committed to its strategy of extended deterrence, the bulk of its warfighting capability rests on its conventional power.

While it may claim otherwise, a nuclear strike against an ally under the U.S. nuclear umbrella by a great power state is unlikely to be met with nuclear force, lest this escalates into strategic nuclear warfare between the two nations. The United States is unlikely to engage in a strategic nuclear war with another state to defend an ally’s security unless U.S. national security and the U.S. homeland is directly threatened. What is more likely to prevent a state from using a strategic strike against non-nuclear adversaries’ cities is the lack of necessity. There are few situations in which this is useful, as most goals can be accomplished nearly as easily with conventional forces. They certainly exist, the nuclear use in Japan highlights this, but if a state has a conventional option that is nearly as effective it would likely take it. While a strategic strike against a nuclear-armed adversaries’ cities is still unlikely, there are two more realistic options that should be considered: a counterforce strike against an adversaries’ nuclear forces, or a counterforce strike against an adversaries’ conventional military forces.

Tactical Nuclear Conflict

Nuclear weapons cannot be lumped together in one class. The way they are used and the style of weapon are important distinctions. Reaching as far back as 1965, Kahn made these assertions in On Escalation, describing different levels of escalation in nuclear conflict instead of the presumed jump to all-out nuclear war. He asserted that nuclear conflict could be fought at a variety of different levels, escalating and de-escalating between them depending on the circumstances. One of the most important distinctions in the modern day is that of counterforce and countervalue weapons. Counterforce would be used at the tactical level, against a state’s conventional or nuclear military forces. Countervalue is what is thought of more traditionally in a nuclear conflict, a higher-yield attack used on the strategic level, against a state’s cities, industry, and personnel. The attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki were of this sort, strategic attacks designed to coerce the state of Japan into surrendering, knowing they could not retaliate.

While the conditions and necessity for a state to conduct a strategic strike may still be unlikely, a more recent trend in nuclear weaponry may be a far more realistic and pressing threat. During the Cold War, states focused on creating the largest, most awe-inspiring and outright terrifying arsenals they could, and fielding the largest, deadliest weapons that they could create. The USSR went as far as to create and test the largest nuclear weapon ever to exist, the Tsar Bomba, a multi-stage hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons. For perspective, this weapon possessed approximately 1,570 times the explosive power of the nuclear weapons detonated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.^[29] Such a massive weapon is terrifying, but also altogether unnecessary, and was unlikely to be used. Much of what was produced in the Cold War was an unbelievable threat. Instead, the modern nuclear age may see more utility in moving the exact opposite direction, fielding low-yield, precision, tactical nuclear weapons.

One of the primary concerns with tactical nuclear weapons is they create a far more realistic threat, blurring the line between conventional and nuclear conflict.^[30] Strategic nuclear weapons used against an opponent’s cities are unlikely to be used. At the minimum, this would invite great harm against each other’s respective states, certainly enough pain that one would seek to avoid it. Few gains are worth the risk of losing one’s major cities and infrastructure. Tactical, low-yield nuclear weapons may avert this obstacle, however. If these weapons are utilized against an adversaries’ conventional forces, and outside of an adversaries’ homeland, it is unlikely to cause massive nuclear retaliation; neither the aggressing nor defending states’ survival is ever threatened in this scenario. These weapons may have the added capability to target and destroy enemy forces and defenses more efficiently, more accurately, and without the heavy number of civilian casualties that may be present in a traditional nuclear strike.  If a state can vastly improve its warfighting capability without the threat to its survival that higher-yield, strategic weapons created, it could be expected to take advantage of these weapons.^[31]

The most likely threat for nuclear weapons use would be a state escalating to tactical nuclear use against an adversaries’ conventional forces, attempting to coerce them into backing down, ensure victory, or deter foreign intervention.^[32] For example, if China decided to retake Taiwan, it may be able to do so conventionally, but such a crisis has the potential to incite an American military response in defense of Taipei and have considerable Chinese casualties. If U.S. forces responded, Beijing may believe tactical nuclear strikes against those forces would be an effective means of creating military superiority against a conventionally superior force and that low-yield weapons could be utilized without threatening China’s survival. Such a measure would be incredibly unlikely to incite a nuclear response against China’s homeland, for fear of a similar response.

In a different, albeit unlikely scenario, tactical nuclear strikes against Taiwanese defenses in an initial strike may have the added effect of deterring an American response in the first place, raising the threshold for American intervention. In this scenario, Beijing would be operating under the impression that the U.S. would be sent a message that coming to Taipei’s defense would not only mean great power war but nuclear conflict, as well. Without facing a threat to its own homeland, it would be far less likely to incur that risk. The use of a nuclear weapon against a non-nuclear weapons state will almost certainly not result in nuclear use against the aggressor.

Similar situations could be seen by attacking a military base outside of a state’s homeland. The idea of such a strike occurring outside of ones’ homeland, on forward-deployed forces is critical. Yield differences mean nothing if the attack is directed at a state’s homeland, directly threatening its security. Escalation to this point is almost certain to result in strategic level escalation. An adversary cannot accurately guess the yield level of an opposing weapon in flight. While lower yield weapons are more useful for tactical level warfare, the target is the more important distinction.

A state must be able to fight at both the tactical and strategic levels. If the aggressing state escalates to the tactical nuclear level, and the responding state is unable to respond at that level, it will be faced with two options: concede and yield or escalate to the strategic level. The latter of these creates a threat to their own security via reciprocation at the strategic level—and hence is an unlikely choice.^[33] The possible exception to this would be if the aggressing state is unable to retaliate at the strategic level themselves. As such, a significant disparity between great power states at the tactical level may be a cause for concern. Strategic capabilities do not need to be vast to create an unacceptable level of harm to a state, all that’s needed to deter at the strategic level is a small, survivable arsenal. Certainly, a single nuclear strike on an American city is an unacceptable consequence, and it would take a very extreme situation for a state to be willing to risk that. Defending a foreign state such as Taiwan that will not impact the survivability of the United States is not such a situation.

If a significant disparity at the tactical nuclear level exists, a state may be able to prevent foreign intervention when engaging in expansive conflict. If China maintained a far superior tactical nuclear capability than the U.S., and even a minimal strategic second-strike capability as described, it is very likely that it could escalate to the tactical nuclear level in an attempt to force the U.S. to de-escalate. With the initial use of tactical nuclear weapons against Taiwanese defenses, it is possible it could prevent U.S. intervention altogether if its capabilities were vastly superior at the tactical level of escalation. Taiwan is certainly not the only example; wherever a significant tactical nuclear disparity exists and state aggression against non-nuclear states cannot be deterred, the U.S. policy of extended deterrence will not hold any merit. The same could be seen with any state’s expansion, such as Russia reclaiming the Baltics, or China moving to use force seize territory claimed by both India and itself. If a state can utilize tactical nuclear weapons and would benefit more than it would risk, there is a possibility of it doing so.

Unfortunately, this is not a mere theoretical threat. The most recent Nuclear Posture Review identified significant expansion and modernization of Russian and Chinese nuclear forces, while the U.S. has expanded only incrementally. Since 2010, the F-35A multirole fighter jet is the only new nuclear delivery system produced by the U.S., whereas Russia has developed a combined total of 14 new delivery systems across the nuclear-triad and China has fielded nine new ground and sea-based delivery systems. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review further mentioned Russia’s vast expansion of tactical weapons systems that can hold either a conventional or nuclear payload.^[34] These types of weapons systems are not held accountable under the START treaty. As of 2016, the only weapon in the U.S. arsenal designed for non-strategic purposes was the B61 gravity bomb, an air-based tactical nuclear weapons system, of which the U.S. maintains an inventory of approximately 500. These weapons have a max payload of about 50 kilotons, which may still be far too high to effectively target conventional forces and provide an effective tactical-level deterrent.^[35] The U.S. does not have tactical nuclear weapons on any other level of the nuclear-triad, a gap which the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review addressed and called to fix.^[36] While the U.S. has slowed down its nuclear programs and the development of tactical nuclear weapons, other countries have not followed this lead, and instead have been exploiting it as a weakness. Retired Vice Admiral Robert Monroe claims that Russia is around 20 years ahead of the U.S. in terms of its low-yield nuclear weapons capabilities.^[37]

There may be an upside though. Tactical nuclear weaponry, a far more believable threat, may be used to enhance deterrence if used properly.^[38] Decisions to aggressively expand and enter into war are made by calculating that a state can win the encounter and the benefits outweighing the costs.^[39] If Russia is to invade the Baltics, it must find that it has a high chance of success. Either it has the capability to defeat NATO defenses and responding forces via tactical nuclear conflict or be confident NATO will not come to their defense, whether this is from initial tactical-nuclear escalation or for other reasons. Strategic weaponry may work to deter a threat from an attack on a state’s homeland, but it remains too unbelievable of a threat to deter another nuclear state from expansion elsewhere. The proxy wars and conflicts against non-nuclear states since the end of World War II provide a solid historical precedent for this. Tactical nuclear weapons may be a more believable threat and be able to deter where strategic weapons could not. If the U.S. announces its commitment to defend Taipei and has an arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons at relative parity to China’s, then China is less likely to try to take Taiwan by force in the first place. The same goes for any other theoretical expansive military action taken by a nuclear state armed with a robust tactical nuclear capability.^[40]

While the aggressing state’s survival is no longer threatened, the cost of war is heavily escalated and chances of success much lower. Tactical nuclear weapons will cause immense and swift destruction to conventional forces on both sides, a risk that is unlikely to be taken. With relative parity, these weapons greatly raise the threshold of military action and may make the risk of conflict even less prevalent if this parity is maintained amongst great powers. This is still not absolute, as even with tactical nuclear parity, the willingness to commit to such an act must be believable. The defense of another state without a direct impact on one’s own homeland may not be believable, and the aggressor may call the bluff. However, not knowing for sure and having the commitment of extended deterrence will cast enough doubt in the majority of situations, as the cost of being wrong would be immense. The best way to prevent such a threat from materializing is to credibly be prepared to fight at all levels if it does.^[41] While this may not guarantee that these weapons will not be used and remain deterred, the lack of parity will almost certainly invite their use if it will give another state superiority over the United States. If a state can topple a stronger conventional force and achieve its goals with nuclear force, without threatening its survival, it will do so. With the competitive and fragile nature of a multipolar nuclear order, it will be of the utmost importance to be able to manage escalation at all levels of nuclear escalation.

Conclusion

In the modern nuclear age, the use of these weapons is increasingly likely, particularly if doing so will give a state a significant advantage over another. Deterrence has merit, but it undoubtedly lies in the presence of a realistic, credible threat, across all levels of the threat spectrum that mitigate this potential advantage.  Nuclear multipolarity and increased interstate competition are resulting in an increasing number of competing, nuclear-armed states with historical tensions, leading to instances of escalation and the development of the security dilemma between multiple actors. Nuclear modernization and proliferation are prompting states to develop low-yield, counterforce nuclear weapons which can be utilized without threatening a state’s survival in a limited nuclear conflict—particularly when parity is not present at all levels of nuclear escalation.

Undeniably, the use of another nuclear weapon, either tactically or strategically, is a travesty that all states must try to avert. At the same time, the destructive power of these weapons does not fundamentally alter the landscape of relations between states. If this power is to be kept in check, this idea must be acknowledged and understood. If a state can get away with using these weapons to advance its position, it almost certainly will do so. Large disparities at different levels of nuclear escalation should be avoided if possible, particularly amongst great powers. While developing more destructive and lethal weapons may seem counterproductive to ensuring peace, doing so may not only be in the interest of sustained U.S. hegemony but to prevent the potential use of nuclear weapons and improve international stability.

^[1] Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

^[2] Mearsheimer, John J. 1994. “The False Promise of International Institutions.” International Security 19, no. 3 (Winter): 10.

^[3] Schelling, Thomas C. 1966. Arms and Influence. New Haven: Yale University Press. 18-26.

^[4] Wallander, Celeste A. 2013. “Mutually Assured Stability: Establishing US-Russia Security Relations for a New Century.” Atlantic Council. July 29, 2013. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/publications/issue-briefs/mutually-assured-stability-establishing-us-russia-security-relations-for-a-new-century.

^[5] Sagan, Scott D., and Kenneth N. Waltz. 2013. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 3-40.

^[6] Dougherty, James E., and Pfaltzgraff, Robert L. 2001. Contending Theories of International Relations. Boston: Addison Wesley Longman. 64.

^[7] Bracken, Paul J. 2013. The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. 162-211.

^[8] Leiber, Keir A., and Press, Daryl G. 2018. “The New Era of Nuclear Arsenal Vulnerability.” Physics and Society 47, no. 1 (January): 2-6. https://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/201801/nuclear-arsenal.cfm.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10] Gavin, Francis J. 2019. “Rethinking the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy.” Texas National Security Review 2, no. 1 (January). https://tnsr.org/2019/01/rethinking-the-bomb-nuclear-weapons-and-american-grand-strategy/.

^[11] Jervis, Robert. 2009. “The Dustbin of History: Mutual Assured Destruction.” Foreign Policy. November 9, 2009. https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/09/the-dustbin-of-history-mutual-assured-destruction/.

^[12] Long, Austin, and Brendan R. Green. 2015. “Stalking the Secure Second Strike: Intelligence, Counterforce, and Nuclear Strategy.” Journal of Strategic Studies 38, no. 1-2: 38-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2014.958150.

^[13] Leiber, Keir A., and Press, Daryl G. 2017. “The New Era of Counterforce.” International Security 41, no. 4 (Spring): 21-27.

^[14] Kristensen, Hans M., and Robert S. Norris. 2018. “Status of World Nuclear Forces.” Federation of American Scientists. Accessed February 20, 2019. https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/.

^[15] Sagan, Scott D. 2018. “Armed and Dangerous.” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 6 (November/December): 35-43. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-10-15/armed-and-dangerous.

^[16] U.S.  Department of Defense. 2018. Nuclear Posture Review. Washington DC. 32.  https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF.

^[17] Allison, Graham. 2010. “Nuclear Disorder.” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 1 (January/February): 74-85. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/pakistan/2010-01-01/nuclear-disorder.

^[18] The Council on Foreign Relations. 2012. “The Global Nonproliferation Regime.” May 21, 2012. https://www.cfr.org/report/global-nuclear-nonproliferation-regime.

^[19] Sagan, 2018.

^[20] Ibid.

^[21] Oberst, Robert C., Yogendra K. Malik, Charles H. Kennedy, Ashok Kapur, Mahendra Lawoti, Syedur Rahman, and Ahrar Ahmad. 2014. Government and Politics in South Asia. Boulder: Westview Press.

^[22] Sagan and Waltz, 2013. 48-63.

^[23] Sagan, 2018.

^[24] Cimbala, Stephen J. 2015. “Deterrence in a Multipolar World.” Air and Space Power Journal 29, no. 4 (July/August): 54-60.

^[25] Kristensen, Hans M., and Robert S. Norris. 2018.

^[26] Colby, Elbridge. 2018. “If You Want Peace, Prepare for Nuclear War.” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 6 (November/December): 25-32. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-10-15/if-you-want-peace-prepare-nuclear-war?fa_package=1123220.

^[27] Bracken, 2014. 93-126.

^[28] Ibid

^[29] Atomic Heritage Foundation. 2014. “Tsar Bomba.” Accessed February 20, 2019. https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/tsar-bomba.

^[30] Doyle, James E. 2017. “Mini-Nukes: Still a Bad Choice for the United States.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. April 17, 2017. https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/mini-nukes-still-a-bad-choice-for-the-united-states/.

^[31] Colby, 2018.

^[32] Carter, Ash. 2016. “Remarks by Secretary Carter to Troops at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.” Department of Defense. September 26, 2016. https://dod.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/956079/remarks-by-secretary-carter-to-troops-at-minot-air-force-base-north-dakota/.

^[33] Kyl, Jon and Michael Morell. 2018. “Why America Needs Low-Yield Nuclear Warheads Now.” Washington Post, November 29, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-america-needs-low-yield-nuclear-warheads-now/2018/11/29/c83e0760-f354-11e8-bc79-68604ed88993_story.html.

^[34] U.S.  Department of Defense. 2018.

^[35] Kristensen, Hans M., and Robert S. Norris. 2018. “United States Nuclear Forces, 2017.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 73, no. 1: 48-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2016.1264213.

^[36] U.S.  Department of Defense. 2018.

^[37] Monroe, Robert. 2017. “Facing the Grave Nuclear Risk.” Washington Times, January 26, 2017. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/26/america-must-resume-underground-nuclear-testing/.

^[38] Kyl and Morell, 2018.

^[39] Waltz, 2013. 8.

^[40] Colby, 2018.

^[41] Ibid.

Conflict and Competition: Limited Nuclear Warfare and the New Face of Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

FTO designations can be assigned to groups if they meet three criteria under U.S. Code §1189—the group must be foreign, engaged in terrorist activity, and threaten U.S. national security. By labeling a group as an FTO, the United States creates extraterritorial criminal and civil liability for parties engaged in providing them with material support. There are currently 73 groups listed, and their status is reviewed every five years by the U.S. State Department.

Maintaining the FTO designation applies political pressure on states that interact with the IRGC—namely Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—to significantly alter their relationships or risk international pariah status. The Iranian marketplace becomes dangerous for prospective business partners, as any dealings with the country could be perceived as IRGC financing since it is state-sponsored. Designations also clarify U.S. attitudes toward international actors and let Iran know that the actions of its paramilitary organization are not tolerated by the United States, irrespective of any future diplomatic re-engagement.

FTO de-designations are less common, with the United States removing only 15 groups from the list since its inception. In most de-designation cases, the groups have been removed due to their outright disbandment, which would not be the case with a de-designation of the IRGC. Attempts to remove groups still active from the list, such as the Houthis, have had negative consequences for U.S. national security.

In February 2021, the United States removed the FTO label from the Houthis, a Yemeni Shi’ite militia group that receives direct funding from the IRGC. The purpose of this de-designation was to better provide Yemeni civilians with humanitarian aid. The designation made it difficult for human rights groups and charitable individuals to donate food, medical supplies, and money while a Saudi-led blockade effectively starved the country. However, the Houthis did not provide any concessions, and less than a year later, the group took advantage of this gesture by launching drone strikes on the United Arab Emirates.

The backlash to this attack was swift. Within the month, the Saudis and Emiratis worked together to conduct lethal airstrikes on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. The Houthis, using Iranian-supplied weapons, responded with strikes on Saudi airports and other civilian locations. The U.S. Treasury Department subsequently crafted new sanctions on the Houthis’ financial network, implicating the IRGC by name. De-designating the IRGC to return to a nuclear deal would send mixed messages from the Biden administration to the Arab world and encourage Iran to spend its newly sanctions-free assets on more excellent militia investment to counter Sunni influence.

Not only will the UAE and the Saudis feel abandoned by the United States if it takes this course of action, but Israel will also question the sincerity of the United States in its stated goal to preserve Israeli sovereignty, which Iran doesn’t recognize. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei demands that “all Muslims must fight until the annihilation of Israel,” and easing Tehran’s ability to supply its most extreme fighting force with outside money will get the regime closer to that goal.

Instead of dropping the IRGC’s FTO designation without concessions, the United States should consider publicizing the non-statutory factors involved in assigning such a designation. This action would inform the international community about the objective criteria involved in U.S. counterterrorism strategies and prevent Washington from appearing disorganized on designation issues between presidential administrations.

Iran’s recent budget and presidential cabinet appointments should inform the Biden administration that a nuclear agreement will not change Iran’s priorities to support the IRGC at the expense of the civilian population. Iran is spending more on the Guards than ever before. Removing the red tape around the IRGC as it expands its research and weapons production capacities would betray close relationships that have taken decades to build. No nuclear agreement should impact the FTO de-designation process, and past conduct by the Houthis justifies the hesitancy to cave to Iranian demands. Removing the label of terrorism should take effort on behalf of the offending party, something the Islamic Republic is unwilling to provide.

A New Nuclear Deal with Iran Shouldn’t Be Accompanied by Terrorist Legitimization was originally published on Global Security Review.

Russia’s military doctrine dictates the use of nuclear weapons in response to any non-nuclear assault on Russian territory.

Russia’s military doctrine encompasses a broad range of potential national security threats, including local, or small-scale wars, regional, or large-scale wars, internal and foreign military threats, the Russian military’s budget, and a host of military-related technical, political, social, and economic issues. Additionally, the doctrine defines the circumstances under which nuclear weapons are to be used by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in response to a threat to Russia’s national security.

The current edition of the Russian military doctrine—when compared to the national security strategy and military doctrine published in 1993—significantly lowers the threshold under which the use of nuclear weapons is permitted. While the 1993 doctrine allowed the first use of nuclear weapons only when the “existence of the Russian Federation” is threatened, the versions published since 2000 explicitly state that Russia “reserves the right to use nuclear weapons to respond to all weapons of mass destruction attacks” on Russia and its allies.

Furthermore, the doctrine released in 2000—and all subsequent versions—allows for nuclear weapons use “in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.” Succinctly put, Russia’s entire national security strategy is predicated on the concept of nuclear de-escalation.

Historical Context: NATO Intervention in the Balkans

In the year before the release of Russia’s 2000 military doctrine, Russia’s military and political leaders warily observed as NATO executed an efficient and precise conventional military operation in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1999, Russia was facing renewed tensions in Chechnya in the aftermath of the disastrous war that broke out following the Soviet Union’s collapse.

It was clear that the United States (and its allies) possessed far greater conventional military capabilities than Russia. Plus, the underlying ethnic and religious issues in Kosovo which led to NATO taking action were seen by Russia as almost identical to those underlying the first Chechen war. These similarities, combined with Russia’s historical view of Serbia—the successor state to the Republic of Yugoslavia—as its “little brother,” led to Moscow developing deep anxiety that the United States would involve itself in another within Russian borders.

In 2000, Russia released an updated military doctrine in which it outlined the concept of de-escalation through a limited nuclear strike. This idea put forth the notion that if Russia were subjected to a major non-nuclear assault that exceeded its capacity for conventional defense, it would “de-escalate” the conflict by launching a limited—or tactical—nuclear strike. While this policy has never been publicly discussed with relation to any particular conflict, the concept of nuclear de-escalation undoubtedly was on the minds of Western leaders during Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, and in the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Conventional and Nuclear Deterrence During the Cold War

The Soviet Union’s collapse and the effective end of the Cold War in the 1990s left Russia and the United States with significantly less reason to fear that one would launch a massive, surprise strategic nuclear attack on the other. The role nuclear weapons played in the international geopolitical framework was fundamentally altered. Nuclear weapons no longer were the centerpiece of security relationship based on the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

Instead, they became status symbols; at the very most, they were considered the ultimate insurance policy against unforeseen aggression. Nuclear weapons maintained their role as the penultimate security guarantee; however, they had very much moved to the background of the international security stage. Many, particularly in the West, believed that global nuclear disarmament was an attainable goal.

During the Cold War, deterrence was effective in maintaining peace between the two superpowers because both states ensured that the other would be deterred on all levels in the event of escalating tensions. At the time, the security relationship between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. was heavily dependent on the concept of parity.  Conventional forces were deterred with conventional forces of equal strength, while nuclear arsenals were positioned in support of mutually assured destruction.

As the Soviet Union broke apart, following years of economic stagnation, the United States and its allies were demonstrating their significant conventional military capabilities in their 1990-1991 campaign to expel Iraqi occupying forces from the oil-rich state of Kuwait.  Russia’s military and political leaders grew increasingly wary about the imbalance—to Russia’s disadvantage—in conventional power projection and efficacy.

Shifting Security Perspectives in the Post-Cold War Era: Russia’s Asymmetric Deterrence Strategy

This anxiety amongst the Russian military’s top brass further developed during the U.S.-led NATO 1999 intervention in Kosovo. The United States’ conventional military power became a clear and distinct threat to Russia. There were many similarities between the origins of the Kosovo conflict and Russia’s own internal war with Chechen separatists during the first Chechen War. What Russia feared most was that the U.S. would intervene in what Russia considered its’ internal affairs. If the U.S. were to launch a non-nuclear (i.e. conventional) assault against the newly formed Russian Federation, Russia’s conventional forces would be of little benefit.

As nuclear deterrence theory during the Cold War was predicated on the concept of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD), deterrence strategy required that effective and credible forces were maintained at every level—conventional and nuclear to be effective. The Soviet Union’s collapse decimated that military’s conventional force projection capabilities. The subsequent Russian military’s ability to deter any conventional U.S. or NATO military action against Russia was rendered ineffective.

The efficacy of the United States’ high-precision conventional weapons was demonstrated in both the Balkan and Iraqi campaigns of the 1990s. Unlike nuclear weapons, these precision-guided “smart bombs” were highly usable and effective—in stark contrast to nuclear weapons. Framed in this context, Russia’s military planners became painfully aware of their strategic disadvantage. Thus, the concept of nuclear de-escalation was born.

Before the conclusion of NATO’s Kosovo operation, Russia initiated the development of a new military doctrine that would deter any conventional or nuclear strike against Russia.  Responsible for the supervision of this effort was then-secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Vladimir Putin. Coincidentally, it was Putin who would sign this doctrine upon its release in 2000, having just become president.

De-escalation revises the scale of a possible nuclear strike. While Cold War deterrence was predicated on the threat of inflicting an overwhelming degree of damage on enemy military and civilian targets, de-escalation rests on the concept of “tailored damage.” The doctrine defines “tailored damage” as inflicting “damage subjectively unacceptable to the opponent [and] exceeds the benefits the [opponent] expects to gain as a result of the use of [conventional] military force.” In other words, Russia’s military planners believed that the threat of a limited or tactical nuclear strike against enemy targets would be an effective deterrence against a conventional attack by the United States or NATO.

Today, the concept of “nuclear de-escalation” continues to be in play, presenting a significant challenge to western military strategists. If Russia were to mount a successful invasion of the Baltic states, it is likely that Russia would consider these countries to be sovereign Russian territory, meaning that any conventional NATO military operation designed to restore the independence of the NATO members would likely be met with a limited nuclear strike. That is, of course, unless U.S. or NATO cyber or other non-kinetic capabilities can disrupt Russia’s nuclear command-and-control apparatus.

Escalate to De-Escalate: Russia’s Nuclear Deterrence Strategy was originally published on Global Security Review.

With no troops on the ground in Afghanistan, the U.S. needs a military base nearby and an access point into the region to prevent al-Qaida and Islamic State militants from reconstituting in Taliban-led Afghanistan. Options being considered range from nearby countries to distant Arab states and Navy ships at sea. While the U.S. intends to rely on ISR forces and OHC-Satellites, U-2s unmanned aerial systems (UAS), and strategic airlift platforms-in the foreseeable future operating from the U.S. aircraft carriers and the U.S. bases located in the Middle East, their effectiveness will significantly depend on regional access points and strategically -distributed assets and capabilities. As the OHC is primarily constrained by distance and airspace access issues, finding new locations near Afghanistan for basing will help the United States identify and carry out counterterrorism strikes. The urgency of establishing American military facilities closer to Afghanistan increased markedly after U.S. drone strikes killed civilians.

Given Afghanistan’s landlocked geography, the composition of its neighbors-China, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan- and the U.S. decade-long disengagement from Central Asia, coupled with the fact that the U.S. has no bases in any of these countries, has created access crisis for the United States.

While access to Afghanistan via overflight of Iran and China is not viable, access to Afghanistan through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan is possible. However, given the nature of the US-Pakistan’s constantly changing relationships and Islamabad’s long-standing ties and partnership with the Taliban, Pakistan’s permission to let planes through its airspace is a politically unstable and increasingly unreliable endeavor that could be revoked at any time.

The United States can get overflight approval and tolerance from Central Asian states for missions against terrorist networks in Afghanistan. However, overcoming the access crisis with the U.S. permanent military presence to Central Asian countries bordering Afghanistan is highly improbable. While American military installations housed in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan could allow quick access to Afghanistan, Russia’s expanding military foothold and China’s growing influence in Central Asia coupled with Taliban warnings and the Central Asian states’ hesitance over whether to host the U.S. military facilities or not have proven to find hosts to the U.S. bases challenging endeavor in Central Asia.

History has proven that it’s not sustainable to have the U.S. military presence in Central Asia. Not long ago, the U.S. used a military base at Manas in Kyrgyzstan, which it had to vacate because of the growing insistence of Bishkek to do so. The U.S. had also leased the Karashi-Khanabad-military base in Uzbekistan. After several years of using it as a transit center, Tashkent demanded the base closed in 2005 amid tensions with Washington-portraying hosting foreign troops on Uzbekistan’s territory as unconstitutional.

The U.S. can overcome the access challenge by looking into Georgia as an alternative. The U.S. should build military facilities and the “Over the Horizon Capabilities”-for troops, drones, and rapid-moving equipment- in Georgia. This will provide easy access and a nearby friendly location from which the U.S. can effectively counter extremist and militant groups re-emerging in Afghanistan. The increased military footprint in Georgia will deter Russian continued aggression, contain Iran’s assertiveness and keep China’s growing influence at bay. While the development of the horizon capabilities in Georgia facilities the United States easy access to Afghanistan, it will provide strategic depth and operational capacity in times of conflict against state and non-state actions in the Middle East.

From the Cold War, Georgia inherited Soviet-built military infrastructure-airports, military bases, training centers, underground towns, training centers, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers. With American assistance, Georgia has spent sizable resources to rebuild, renovate, and modernize this very infrastructure in the last two decades. In addition to interoperable military infrastructure, Georgia features strategic geography. Given its proximity to Afghanistan and the Middle East, it’s an ideal location for the United States to store supplies, keep forces and respond to adversaries swiftly and decisively.

The U.S. should integrate Georgia into its over horizons capability infrastructure network. While American fighters, bombers, RQ-9s, and U-2s can be based and operated from U.S. military bases in the UAE and Qatar, the airlift, resupply, and tanker aircraft can be based and operated from Vaziani Air Base in Georgia. Georgia’s strategic location and proximity to Afghanistan (and the Middle East) will make the United States’ strategic objectives easily attainable. While flight time from Vaziani Air Base to Central Asian countries ranges from 2 to 3 hours, the closest the U.S. airbase is one 500-plus mile from Uzbekistan or Tajikistan entry. Georgia is even closer to northern and central Afghanistan than the distant Parisian Gulf States. While flying time from the UAE to Afghanistan is four to five hours, and Qatar five to six hours, the flight from Georgia is much shorter, a little over three hours.

Georgia has already demonstrated its high value and strategic significance by successfully contributing to the Northern Distribution Network’s (NDN) activities in Afghanistan and the U.S.’s recent Afghanistan evacuation efforts.  While Georgia played a crucial role in supplying NATO’s international security operations in Afghanistan, Georgia played a critical role in the evacuation process from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan due to American withdrawal from Afghanistan. The aircraft, including C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft of the Heavy Airlift Wing (HAW), operating as part of the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) program, has conducted regular flights on routes Tbilisi-Kabul-Tbilisi to evacuate military and civilian personnel from Afghanistan.

The United States forces will operate in a reliable, comfortable, and friendly environment in Georgia. Americans are welcome in Georgia. Over 90 percent of Georgians hold a favorable view of the United States. According to the Edison research’s survey, 64 percent of Georgians support the idea of hosting the U.S. military base. Hence, unlike many states in Central Asia and the Middle East, Tbilisi is less likely to challenge the U.S. basing rights or deny access for operations.

Skeptics in the United States may fear that the development of American over the horizon capabilities in Georgia could lead to a direct great power clash between the U.S. and Russia. On the other hand, Isolationists may also argue that the South Caucasus is Russia’s backyard, and Moscow can always out-escalate and outplay Washington in any military encounter over Georgia. But, the United States’ strategic edge over Russia, reflected in Washington’s superior economy, technology, military capabilities, and alliance system, will make Russia less likely to clash with America over its increased military footprint in Georgia. Moreover, America’s military buildup and its strong military commitment to European defense deterred the Soviet Union, and similar engagements in Georgia will deter Putin’s Russia.

This is why the United States should place its military facilities in Georgia and embrace Tbilisi’s opportunities against the challenges emanating both from Afghanistan and the broader Middle East. The U.S. military infrastructure in Georgia, integrated into the United States over the horizon capability architecture will provide the U.S. with more mussels and flexibility to deter Russia, contain Iran and keep China at bay while weakening and even preventing the reemergence of terrorist networks in Afghanistan.

Placing “Over-The-Horizon” Capabilities in Georgia was originally published on Global Security Review.

In the wake of the AUKUS agreement, EU member states must come to terms with the loss of primacy and the shift of the U.S.’s geostrategic center of gravity to the East to counter Chinese expansionism. The old Eurocentric western security architecture is essentially in shambles, hindering NATO’s integrity as well. The emerging “Quad” alliance between the U.S., U.K., Australia, India, and Japan diminishes NATO’s importance in the Indo-Pacific. The French and other traditional allies and partners—members of EU and NATO—collectively appeared more enraged than China, highlighting the clumsy formation of AUKUS that was accelerated by the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. AUKUS marks a turning point in global geopolitics that will have a domino effect on several parts of the world—one being the Eastern Mediterranean.

After the diplomatic blow of AUKUS and Angela Merkel’s retirement from frontline politics, France’s first reaction was to strengthen its ties with Greece and increase its presence in the Eastern Mediterranean by signing a rearmament deal that modernizes the Hellenic Navy and commits to an important Defense Assistance Agreement. The latter includes a clause of mutual defense assistance—similar to the mutual defense clause (Article 42.7 TEU) of the Treaty of the European Union—in case one of the two states is attacked on its territory.

Analysts note a relation between AUKUS and U.S. support for France to pursue a more proactive role in the Eastern Mediterranean through the game-changing Franco-Greek deal that bolsters the Greek armed forces with three Belharra frigates (+1 option). Athens previously ordered 18 Rafale fighter jets and has plans to acquire six more in the future.

France already showed its intention to support Greece against Turkey during a prolonged 82-day crisis that brought Greece and Turkey (two historic rivals and NATO members) to the brink of conflict. Back in 2020, the Turks deployed their seismic research vessel Oruç Reis accompanied by a flotilla of warships to conduct surveys on the Greek continental shelf (as described in United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – UNCLOS III) that Turkey claims with the unsubstantiated Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland) naval doctrine. The Mavi Vatan opposes UNCLOS III provisions and is based on the arbitrary assumption that all islands are deprived of the right to exert jurisdiction on the continental shelf. However, the Law of the Sea is binding on all states to the extent that it represents customary international law, and although Turkey is not a signatory to it, it has to comply with it.

French President Emmanuel Macron openly criticizing Turkey’s activity on the Greek and Cypriot continental shelf/exclusive economic zone (EEZ) said, “I don’t consider that in recent years Turkey’s strategy is the strategy of a NATO ally… when you have a country which attacks the exclusive economic zones or the sovereignty of two members of the European Union.” In contrast, on another occasion, he clarified that “France has been very clear. When there were unilateral acts in the eastern Mediterranean, we condemned them with words, and we acted by sending frigates.” After signing the Franco-Greek deal in Élysée Palace, he also noted that “it will help protect the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of both states.”

France’s intervention came as no surprise since it has competing interests with Turkey over Syria, Lebanon, and Africa. As Professor of Geopolitics Kostas Grivas explained, France has a large presence and significant geopolitical interests in Africa. Its strategic depth is in Africa, incorporating more than the Francophone states.

The Mediterranean is bridging France with the African continent; thus is imperative to maintain control of it, especially after the recently discovered energy resources attracting a great deal of interest. This brings France closer to Greece, and the Republic of Cyprus in a containment effort against Turkey’s expansionism left unanswered by the EU’s inability to guard its outermost borders.

The Turks, as expected, expressed their frustration with the newly formed Franco-Greek strategic alliance by putting pressure on Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. Turkish frigates obstructed the Maltese-flagged research vessel Nautical Geo hired to conduct research related to the EastMed gas pipeline. The ship attempted to work on the Greek continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (delimitated with Egypt) and Cypriot EEZ (delimitated with Egypt). Turkey, however, is claiming the same continental self with the Mavi Vatan doctrine.

With an increased military presence, the Turks aimed and succeeded in forcing the Americans on yet another equidistance statement. A State Department spokesman said the U.S. “encourages all states to resolve maritime delimitation issues through peaceful dialogue and in accordance with international law,” an announcement that overlooks the fact that the Turkish frigate obstructed Nautical Geo’s work on Greek and Cypriot delineated EEZs.

The Connection Between AUKUS, the Franco-Greek Pact, and the EastMed Pipeline was originally published on Global Security Review.

After smallpox was officially eradicated, the world’s remaining samples of variola virus were locked away in vaults in biosafety level 4 laboratories at CDC Headquarters in Atlanta, GA, and the Vector Research Institute in Novosibirsk, Siberia. An estimated 5 million lives annually since the disease’s eradication have been saved, a testament to the awesome power and great lengths taken to end this disease. However, even though the last known naturally occurring case was reported in Somalia in 1977, smallpox still poses a dramatic risk to United States national security.

If only the United States and Russia have variola virus samples and the use of biological weapons has the potential to trigger an epidemic or pandemic, one might conclude that state use of smallpox as a weapon is not a significant threat. However, multiple countries have unofficial samples of the variola virus, including North Korea and Russia. Worse yet, the United States is not adequately prepared for a smallpox outbreak. Smallpox, a Category A agent, is considered easy to disseminate and transmits easily from person to person. Furthermore, despite the increased preparedness efforts taken after the 2001 Amerithrax attacks, the United States is not prepared for a bioterror attack. Though the United States stockpiles smallpox vaccines, the logistics of maintaining and rolling out the vaccine to the masses in a bioterror attack scenario would be incredibly difficult, as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has demonstrated. This could be further exacerbated by growing anti-vaccine sentiments.

In addition to concerns that the countries in possession of smallpox samples could deploy them as a weapon, there are further valid concerns that artificial gene synthesis could allow for the re-creation of smallpox. There is potentially precedence for this: in 2017, many scholars criticized a PLOS ONE article providing details of how one Canadian lab reconstructed an infectious horse pox virus using chemically synthesized DNA, arguably providing a roadmap of how one might do the same for smallpox. Dual-use research is certainly nothing new but, in a more interconnected world, the threats posed by infectious disease dual-use research are especially concerning. Furthermore, as community and private labs proliferate alongside concerns about who is in our university labs across the U.S., issues of who has access to this type of research could also pose greater national security risks than many presently estimate.

Today, a successful smallpox attack would be catastrophic, and ensuring we are prepared for an intentional release of variola virus will entail strengthening public health at all levels, ensuring the stability and efficacy of the Strategic National Stockpile, and making sure healthcare providers and private healthcare systems are prepared should they be presented with a case. These public health steps are vital to national biosecurity preparations as well. Furthermore, cross-disciplinary collaborations in academia, industry, and government are critical to facilitate this preparation and to achieve better biosecurity in this country, particularly as some public health scholars have argued that increased bio-preparedness has harmed public health.

Finally, while smallpox is a  unique case, this challenge highlights larger structural issues the United States and other countries must address such as the urban-rural healthcare divide, racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes, rising prescription drug prices, and ongoing crises like the opioid and obesity epidemics. While we lack clear, open-source information about smallpox and general biological weapons capabilities of other states and non-state actors, we can improve our preparedness for possible attacks by improving our overall public health. Regardless of if we face a future smallpox attack or not, and despite the lack of harmony between these two fields, such steps will improve our overall preparedness for future pandemics and emerging health threats.

The Overlooked, Dangerous Nexus Between National Security and Public Health: The Case of Smallpox was originally published on Global Security Review.

Setup for Failure

The US-led invasion was intractable from the start. With the invasion occurring less than a month after the attacks on September 11^th, 2001, the US did not give itself or its coalition partners much time to devise a plan of action for the invasion and to create peace after the invasion. Though the legal basis was clear – al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden committed the most devastating terror attack on US soil to date, the Taliban harbored bin Laden and much of his al-Qaeda network within Afghan territory, therefore, the Taliban was complicit – the US failed to develop a comprehensive regime of goals and objectives outside of finding bin Laden and destroying the Taliban for harboring him. The Bush administration did try to ‘provide the security that is the foundation for peace,’ but failed to develop a functional strategy to achieve this because there was no real conceptualization of what that meant.

“It was an accidental war” following September 11, 2001. “It was initially to punish those who committed the crime with no plans or strategy for what needs to happen after that.” 

Ali Jalali, former Afghan Interior Minister

Ultimately, without significant conceptualization of what a post-Taliban Afghanistan could or should look like, NATO was never going to be able to do more than temporarily disrupt the Taliban which proved more resilient and willing to wait out the Coalition in the short and medium terms.

Development was Neither Afghan Centered nor Afghan Led

Part of what seems to sting the most for Americans critical of the withdrawal is the prospect of losing all of the progress that was made in Afghanistan towards building a democratic future for the country. But that was always impermanent. The development work in Afghanistan, from democratization initiatives, government capacity building, to infrastructure development, was always NATO-led, and therefore fragile when it came time for NATO to leave. Rather than empowering the Afghans to build organic political structures and institutions and security agreements and forces, NATO laid much of the groundwork itself. By imposing governmental structures and administrative procedures and making deals and agreements with local and regional leadership, NATO never allowed the new government to build a sense of legitimacy it would need to govern and keep Afghanistan secure by keeping those relationships and agreements intact after the occupation ended. This was probably done to prevent corruption and ensure capacities were built in ways that NATO could understand and quantify to continue justifying to publics back home. But this left the new Afghan government without its own roots and struggling with a perception of being a product of outside occupiers that would crumble once NATO left.

This is similar to what the US saw in Iraq. The US created partnerships between different regional and tribal groups to help bring security to the more turbulent regions of Iraq. But when US troops left the country, the bonds that held these regional coalitions together quickly snapped under the pressure of the inevitable power vacuum. Militias and warlords raced for arms and control of resources, ultimately devolving the country into civil war because the new Iraqi government was not yet stable enough to fill it. Because the new Afghan government hasn’t been at the helm creating its own security and stability, the same power vacuum is almost inevitable in Afghanistan as well. And the Taliban has been lying in wait for the day that NATO leaves and that vacuum opens up.

Is Afghanistan Better Off?

We must also question, like in Iraq, if Afghanistan is better off today than it was before NATO’s occupation. It is easy to look at democratization efforts and infrastructure projects like building schools and hospitals and say “yes, clearly.” But in reality, the NATO-backed government in Afghanistan only holds control of about 50% of Afghanistan’s total territory right now. The rest is controlled by the Taliban and aligned warlords. The reach of that development has not spread across the entire country. Further, what good has this development done if the people of Afghanistan are still captured in crossfire. Estimates from 2019 say that as many as 43,000 civilians, including women and children, have died as direct casualties of the occupation. As many as 100,000 more received injuries directly from occupation operations, not to mention mental trauma and indirect deaths and injuries. There are some positive outcomes from the occupation. But those outcomes aren’t widespread, sustainable post-occupation; and there’s a legitimate argument that these positive outcomes are offset or outsized by the brutal cost of the conflict in total.

Could the US & NATO Endure?

This article is not intended as a cynical endorsement of President Biden’s plan to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. Rather, it is meant as a reckoning with the reality of the situation in Afghanistan over grandiose ideations of some undefined victory over the Taliban. The Taliban is dug in. It is fighting for what it sees as a righteous homeland. It knows how to extract resources from the environment in Afghanistan, including maintaining legitimacy with which foreign occupiers cannot compete. NATO can weaken it, but the Taliban can, has, and will endure in the shadows until the NATO tires. The US & NATO cannot endure, not the same way the Taliban can. The occupation is costly in lives and money and NATO partners must constantly justify these costs to publics at home that do not want to continue paying.

What is a Better, More Feasible Alternative?

Unfortunately, there are no good alternatives for NATO. The returns from the occupation continue to diminish as the Taliban gains more territory. And continuing the occupation will only prolong the inevitable. However, there may be some hope for a long-term shift in strategy that won’t dismantle the Taliban but may help build stability and give the chance for peace in the future. The Biden administration has begun the process – regional security cooperation between Afghanistan, the US, Pakistan, India, Russia, and China through the United Nations. It’s not clear exactly what roles each of these partners will have in promoting peace in post-occupation Afghanistan, but there is potential here. The security of the Central Asian region depends on the security of Afghanistan. Continued instability and insecurity in Afghanistan threaten the security of Pakistan and China directly, as they share land borders with Afghanistan and spillover effects could threaten regional dynamics destabilizing security dynamics for the others as well.

If this cooperation centers on the needs and capacities of Afghanistan and is led by Afghanistan, then there is hope that the democratic Afghan government can create crucial legitimacy-building and capacity-building initiatives. This would allow Afghan security forces to better counter Taliban operations and resource networks and disrupt the Taliban’s social, tribal, and cultural ties that help entrench its power. It would also show Afghans that they can have confidence that their government can provide good governance for them, not the foreign occupiers who are providing or dictating over them. But that would mean great care would need to be taken in this new security cooperation to ensure that Afghan forces lead and construct security operations and Afghan politicians and public servants need to develop, lead, and guide development initiatives following the needs and desires of the Afghan people. More specifically, that means Afghans need to be in charge of how development aid is distributed and used. This is a sharp change to how development aid is normally done – conventionally, how development aid is used and distributed is dictated by the aid giver- But this limits the aid recipient from being able to tailor that aid to the dynamic needs of the people it’s supposed to help, forcing them to either return of not use the aid or use it outside of its prescriptions and then face accusations of corruption. But if this new security cooperation can center the needs, interests, and leadership of Afghans first, then there is a that it will be able to push back against the Taliban over time. This won’t be overnight, or probably not even over the course of months or a year. But a long-term process of development, security cooperation, and resource investment into Afghan governance and economy may ultimately be the key to finally dismantling the Taliban rather than pushing them into the shadows.

The Inevitability of the Taliban’s Resurgence in Afghanistan was originally published on Global Security Review.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989, the United States held an unparalleled political, economic, and military position in the post-communist era. For nearly three decades, liberal values propped up by an unrivaled technological superiority outpaced its European allies and dwarfed the concerted efforts of Asian and Latin American developing nations. International organizations, such as NATO, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization facilitated cooperation among nations and created incentives for states to work together.^[i] Consecutive international agreements, treaties, and conventions aimed to stabilize regions, resolve disputes and deep conflicts of interest, and remedy residual power imbalances which thwarted institutional cohesion and domestic prosperity. The rising tides of economic globalization promised to lift all boats. 

Yet, “instead of a peaceful world order and near-universal acceptance of benevolent U.S. leadership,” as one well-regarded international scholars has indicated, “the post-Cold War world continued to operate according to the more traditional dictates of realpolitik”^[ii] necessitating extensive budgetary commitments to the U.S. security and military. The increase in total global wealth failed to sufficiently proof emerging democracies against the likelihood of war and the 2001 treaty of friendship and cooperation between the United States and China came to yield contrasting dividends in 2020. The U.S.’ “constructive relationship” with China and a “special relationship” with Russia have been outpaced by Chinese appropriation and near-monopolistic power over global supply chains, aggressive Russian exercise missions in the Arctic, the Baltic, and the outer space, and further exacerbated by the pandemic-affected social, political, and economic realities on the ground. 

buydiazepamuk.com

The National Defense Strategies issued in the past three years have acknowledged an “increasingly complex global security environment, characterized by overt challenges to the free and open international order.”^[iii] For the authors of the NDS 2018, it has become gradually more apparent that China and Russia strive to shape a world that is consistent with their authoritarian model, while Iran and North Korea seek to guarantee regime survival and increased leverage by seeking nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional, and unconventional weapons.^[iv]

The new millennium has thus been marked by rapid technological and social change provoking geopolitical realignments, regional power struggles, and unabated military, research, and economic rivalry. The United States recognizes that international strategic competition between trade partners as well as political foes is on the rise and that it must adjust its national security and defense strategies to unilaterally meet the emerging challenges.^[v]

What’s at issue

In the next great power competition, traditional forms of kinetic warfare will undoubtedly give way to simulated but not less effective non-military methods involving close collaboration between civilian and military sectors of the economy and society. These phantom warfare scenarios will likely occur in the cybersphere through unmanned agents of surveillance, manipulation of algorithmic data, and advanced use of Artificial Intelligence and drone technologies. Scientific advances will breed a new generation of sophisticated biotechnologies enabling synthetic engineering of pathogens and biological compounds which will permanently alter the national security landscape and their use for offensive and defensive purposes, will make the conduct of future conflicts a permanent feature in the military toolkit of industrialized and highly developed nations as well as developing and rising or revisionist powers seeking strategic advantage via non-traditional means. 

The resulting cool war – or “an on-going conflict that involves constant offensive measures that seek to damage the economic health of a rival and the targeting of ‘cutting edge technologies’”^[vi] – sets as its goal the maintenance of a stable thermal equilibrium preventing the conflict from turning hot or resulting in full kinetic or nuclear engagement. 

Non-kinetic violence unleashed to maximize political and economic goals will be accompanied by a considerable diffusion of power across networks of state and non-state actors capable of inflicting damage to vital state interests without the possibility of being traced, actively monitored, or prevented by current legal and extra-legal systems in place. Future theaters or war will undoubtedly blur conventional lines of distinction drawn in international law between civilians and combatants, international and non-international conflicts as well as challenge states’ responses to asymmetric warfare and the degree of proportionality required to effectively repel unconventional attacks on state-owned infrastructure and resources.

The post-9/11 intelligence threat assessments focused heavily on biological weapons in the hands of terrorist groups. Substances such as anthrax, smallpox, and other conventional biological agents comprised a list of the most likely culprits instigating terror on a global scale. As late as 2017, Homeland Security cited concerns with threats of bioterrorism which included high-profile disease outbreaks, such as Ebola and viruses like dengue, chikungunya, and Zika.^[vii] Highly virulent compounds and substances resulting from marked improvements in nanotechnologies and bio-engineering can also constitute a novel form of asymmetrical “hybrid” conflict defined by the NATO 2014 Wales Summit Declaration as a specific set of challenges and threats (including cyber and terrorism) “where a wide range of overt and covert military, paramilitary, and civilian measures are employed in a highly integrated design.”^[viii]

There is a reason, therefore, to assume that bio- incidents will, in the future as much as they had in their disreputable past, become once again more fully integrated into the “hybrid” warfare design and constitute, along with cyber and terrorism, a (re)emerging threat paradigm in the new state-power competition. 

The White House’s 2018 Biodefense Strategy in alignment with the 2018 National Defense Strategy identifies biological threats – whether naturally, occurring, accidental, or deliberate in origin – as among the most serious challenges facing the United States and the international community.^[ix] The document puts significant emphasis on enhancing the national bio-defense enterprise to protect the United States and its partners abroad from biological incidents. It sets out five goals and objectives for ameliorating the risks stemming from the evolving biological risk landscape. They are: (i) Enabling risk awareness to inform decision-making across the bio-defense enterprise; (ii) Ensuring bio-defense capabilities to prevent bio-incidents; (iii) Ensuring bio-defense enterprise preparedness to reduce the impacts of bio-incidents; (iv) Rapidly responding to limit the impacts of bio-incidents; (v) Facilitating recovery to restore the community, the economy, and the environment after a bio-incident. 

The United States Government Accountability Office’s “National Biodefense Strategy” report underscored, however, several lapses in the 2018 Biodefense Strategy Report, such as lack of “clearly documented methods, guidance, processes, and roles and responsibilities for enterprise-wide decision-making”^[x] complicating coordination of response mechanisms to bio-incidents thus putting the initiative in danger of failing to meet its long-term bio-defense objectives. 

In recognition of the changing threat environment, the Trump Administration’s 2021 budget priority requests call for $740.5 billion for national security, $705.4 billion of which will be dedicated to the Department of Defense’s investment priorities, which include building a more lethal, agile, and innovative joint force.^[xi]

An overview of funds allocation demonstrates an emphasis on traditional tools and methods of warfare, such as nuclear modernization ($28.9 billion), missile defeat and defense ($20.3 billion); munitions ($21.3 billion) as well as newer frontiers of potential conflict, including cyberspace ($9.8 billion) and the space domain ($18.0 billion). The proposed budget also anticipates expenditures in bio-research but does not explicitly support or articulate specific bio-weapons defense research and development objectives. Its investments in bio-technologies focus on (1) “$1.3 billion for the Agricultural Research Service, which conducts in-house basic and applied research, develop vaccines, and provide enhanced diagnostic capabilities to protect against emerging foreign animal and zoonotic diseases that threaten the Nation’s food supply, agricultural economy, and public health.”^[xii] (2) “$14 billion investment in DOD science and technology programs that support key investments in industries of the future, such as artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and biotechnology.” (3) “HHS bio-defense and emergency preparedness procurement through the BioShield program and the Strategic National Stockpile, and includes $175 million to support Centers for Disease Control’s global health security activities, an increase of $50 million compared to the 2020 enacted level.”^[xiii]

The United States continues to invest heavily in medical intelligence under the auspices of the Department of Defense to monitor the research terrain in order to identify the known knowns and known unknowns.

Bio-events: Who’s in Charge?

The Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Agriculture have been tasked with bio-surveillance responsibilities, which include developing personnel, training, equipment, and systems to support a national bio-surveillance capability.^[xiv] As of May 2020, Homeland Security has been working on future-oriented enhancements comprising of: 

1. The Enhanced Passive Surveillance program geared toward delivering a “surveillance system for identifying endemic, transboundary and emerging disease outbreaks in livestock…and  identify trigger points to alert officials for action.” 
2. The BioThreat Awareness APEX program will “develop affordable, effective and rapid detection systems and architectures to provide advance warning of a biological attack at indoor, outdoor and national security events.” 
3. The Bio-surveillance Information and Knowledge Integration Program seeks to develop a Community of Practice (COP) Platform prototype that integrates multiple data streams to support decision making during a biological event as well as inform training tools for state responders.”^[xv]

The programs here enumerated aim to complement the existing systems in place, including the BioWatch program managed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Affairs monitoring aerosol releases of select biological agents, natural and man-made as well as the Department of Defense’s Airbase/Port Detector System or Portal Shield System designed to provide early warning of biological threats to high-value assets, such as air bases and port facilities.^[xvi]

The 2010 Report to Congress issued by the US Government Accountability Office claims, however, that “there is neither a comprehensive national strategy nor a focal point with the authority and resources to guide the effort to develop a national bio-surveillance capability” and that “efforts to develop a bio-surveillance system could benefit from a focal point that provides leadership for the interagency community.”^[xvii]

References

^[i] Stephen M. Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy, (New York: Ferrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018). p. 71.

^[ii] Stephen M. Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy, (New York: Ferrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018). p. 74.

^[iii] United States Department of Defense. 2018. National Defense Strategy: Summary. https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf p. 2.

Bio-Security in the Age of Global Pandemics was originally published on Global Security Review.

Russia – Militarization, Oil, and Gas

Russia’s approach to the Arctic is heavily informed by its geographic and historic place as an Arctic power. Fifty-three percent of Russia’s coastline is in the Arctic, which makes it a prime place to project power. Russia also has the largest population of Indigenous People in the Arctic, numbering around 1.4 million. Most importantly, however, Russia has a huge economic interest in oil and gas extraction in the Arctic as well as the further economic development of the Northern Sea Route. For Russia, then, the Arctic is a place of high stakes. Over the past few years, Russia has been steadily increasing its military and commercial presence in the Arctic, developing new bases as well as refurbishing old ones. Further, Russia is also constructing new icebreakers and submarines – some of which are nuclear powered – making it the country that likely has a distinct advantage in terms of actual military equipment.

Although Russia’s current military buildup in the Arctic is primarily defensive, some of its actions can be perceived as dually offensive and defensive. For example, in 2014, Russia established a new Strategic Command center for the Arctic both to increase Arctic security as well as to defend its interests – leading to an increase in Arctic exercises. Russia has also built more than 475 new military outputs and 16 new deep-water ports.

While this militarization might paint a very aggressive picture, it’s important to note that Russia’s interest in the Arctic also revolves around oil and gas. Much of the untapped resources in Russia’s territorial boundaries lies in the Arctic, leading the region to be extraordinarily economically important to the country. As a country that historically has prided itself on resource exports, Russia’s aggressive control over the Northern Sea Route, twenty icebreakers, and interest in the Arctic makes more sense. Regardless, Russia’s Arctic focus is certainly notable and will play an important role as the ice continues to melt, and resources become easier to access.

China: The Near-Arctic Newcomer

China plays another interesting role in the Arctic. Notably, it is not one of the Arctic Eight represented in the Arctic Council. Instead, it considers itself a near-Arctic power, joining the Arctic Council as an observer in 2013 – and in 2018 released its first white paper on Arctic Strategy. In this paper, China presented its Polar Silk Road component of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Most importantly, the white paper claims that China will develop new shipping lanes that have been opened by global warming. Beyond that, China sees the development of oil, gas, fishing, and tourism as key industries to become involved in as global warming progresses.

Although China’s interest appears to be economic and commercial for now, other states do not view it as such. Former US Secretary of State Pompeo, for example, called China a threat to Arctic peace and pointed to its actions in the South China Sea as an example of what could happen in the Arctic if China’s inroads were allowed to continue. Another flashpoint between the US and China is Greenland. Recently, China attempted to buy an older naval base and build a new airport in Greenland – an effort that was halted by the US government, who allegedly has claimed they will invest in these projects instead of China. However, China is still moving forward to build investment relationships with Greenland, Iceland, and Finland concerning geothermal energy and potentially a data silk road.

Another partner in the Arctic for China may be Russia. Russia and China are increasingly working together on Arctic development, where China has been providing funding for Russian infrastructure and energy project in the Arctic. It remains to be seen whether these two powers, who arguably do not have a historically close relationship, will continue to work together moving forward.

The United States – Reactor-in-Chief

Out of the US China, and Russia, the US is likely the most reactive of the three powers. Most of its policies are in response to what it sees as unwelcome incursions of China and Russia. The American approach to the Arctic is to see the region as the next theatre in great power competition, slowly increasing its presence militarily and economically. For example, the US recently commissioned the construction of two new icebreakers. With the advent of the Biden administration, however, the US has shown a growing interest in the region. Both the US Navy and the US Department of Homeland Security released new Arctic strategies for the first time this year – illustrating the country’s renewed Arctic focus. In short, while the US is not nearly as aggressive as Russia, American rhetoric is becoming more pointed at keeping Chinese influence low and containing what it sees as Russian militarization.

While the three powers certainly are not going to head to total war anytime soon, it bears watching that rhetoric on all sides of the region is becoming more bellicose and sharper. With the new Biden administration, it will be interesting to watch the extent to which American rhetoric may change or whether temperatures and pressures will continue to rise in the Arctic.

Arctic Great Power Competition: The United States, Russia and China was originally published on Global Security Review.

“And what, I said, will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the State and the amount of territory which they are to include, and beyond which they will not go?”

“What limit would you propose?”

“I would allow the State to increase as far as is consistent with unity, that, I think, is the proper limit.”

“Very good,” he said.

~Plato, The Republic

When was the last time the general public had a truly open discussion on to what the limits to Washington’s global frontier are and what they should be? Where does the global power projection of the United States end? Have the post-World War II and post-Cold War settlements made the United States the world’s indispensable nation, or has it put itself in a remarkable state of over-expansion and decline as it stretches its security commitments above and beyond those of any other power in history?

There has never yet been a truly global great power in world history in the universal sense. No nation has ever been able to have its way across the entire planet without significant reversals and eventual decline. A strong case could be made that the United States came the closest of any great power to total global hegemony. But now sees the signs a post-peak decline relative to other powers as well as greater assertion by rivals. It certainly seems like a mythology of exceptionalism is not going to alter the United States’ fate as a subject of history like those who came before.

As Americans we are almost uniformly taught a specific story about the rise of our country from reluctant industrial powerhouse to omnipresent globe-straddling power. This traditional narrative tells us that the United States failed to engage with the rest of the world in the aftermath of the First World War, and that this failure created the conditions that would necessitate us seizing the mantle of leadership during the Second World War lest the process repeat itself. The public, in this story, was against a worldly presence and remained resolutely and shortsightedly isolationist until Pearl Harbor forced the issue. The implication is often that if constant interventionism is not upheld that the general public will return to this view. Thus, the rhetoric of many foreign policy elites has come to continue to assert that the United States is beset by enemies that threaten it on an existential level, even though such paradigms have long been rendered obsolete. Where this historiography correct it would still be about a specific era with quite different variables than today, and a case can be made that story of America’s reluctant rise is not even correct in the first place.

Of course, Pearl Harbor was not some freakish and unprovoked event, but rather the culmination of a breakdown in U.S.-Japanese diplomatic relations related to an economic blockade imposed upon Tokyo in retaliation for its occupation of much of China, an expansionist policy that the U.S. vigorously opposed. The militarists in Japan, no longer able to rely on trade for growth, convinced themselves the only way to break out and establish autarky was through expansion into Southeast Asia, something that would inevitably cause war with Britain and (it was assumed in Tokyo) the United States. Combined with the massive neutrality violating policies of Lend/Lease that the U.S. pursued towards the British and against the Germans, it is obvious that isolationism wasn’t quite the omnipresent policy we were told it was.

This mythology of an absolute binary between constant militarized engagement with the world and total isolationism begins in this era, but it has now evolved into assumptions about Grand Strategy to all of U.S. foreign policy. As Stephen Wertheim’s new book, ‘Tomorrow The World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy’ shows us, isolationism is largely a canard. The specter of isolationism is largely a rhetorical weapon used to demonize a largely non-existent policy position in order to quash all criticism of endless American expansionism. One does not need to be universally opposed to all of American policy since the Second World War to see the immense value of this book in showing the ideological lineage we have inherited that distorts how we talk about Grand Strategy through the present.

Wertheim’s first task is to rebuild the discourse of interwar America as it really was, not as it is retroactively imagined to be. He does this by using archival research that shows, in the very words of people alive at the time, how international the United States was before the Second World War. This internationalism was (excepting the obvious fact that the foundation of the country itself had been built on expansion at the expense of the indigenous population and Mexico) largely non-militaristic. Exceptions occurred of course, most notably during the war with Spain in 1898, but compared to other major powers of the time the United States was much more interested in diplomacy and commerce than it was in militarized competition. This did not change after the First World War, where, despite not joining the League of Nations, the U.S. remained diplomatically active and invested in international trade. Its actions around the Kellog-Briand Pact and the Washington Naval Treaty show an engaged but not militaristic power.

It is often said that generals tend to start each conflict by trying to fight that last war. The same can be said for geostrategists gauging great power competition. Britain and France were largely responsible for defeating the Central Powers in 1918, so it was reasoned in Washington that they could at least contain if not outright defeat the 3rd Reich in 1939. France had, on paper, the strongest army in Europe. It had had the strongest and arguably most important army in World War I, despite a rocky start. The Germans had been beaten before; they would at least be checked again.

But then the unthinkable happened. France fell after a six-week onslaught starting in May of 1940. Britain was left alone, and Germany now controlled the resources and population of an additional major power. One with huge ports and naval assets on the Atlantic Coast. It was this event, the upsetting of all geopolitical assumptions by American strategists, that brought forth the need to sell the public on the idea of the U.S. being a powerbroker not just in the Western Hemisphere, but in Europe and Asia if not the entire world.

The first tactic was to build up the ideology of Anglo-American solidarity. The United States might not be ready to directly intervene in the war, but it could do everything shy of fighting directly to bulk up the British Empire in ‘defense of the English-speaking peoples and their values.’ The League of Nations had failed, so any future collaborative effort would clearly need to be guided by the firm hand of a unified and militarized Anglo-American bloc. This new selling point in the media came about by castigating those opposed to this as ‘isolationists.’ An especially ironic charge given the pro-diplomacy position of most people classified as such. In effect, to refuse to defend the British Empire was now viewed by many as the same position as wanting to turn away from the world entirely.

1941 would change everything yet again. American policymakers had over-estimated trade as a value of a nations power in wartime and under-estimated industrial output. In the Second World War it was Russia who would stand strong rather than France, an inversion of the initial assumptions that came from the first war. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and their initial successes stalled in front of Moscow, it soon became apparent that the Soviet Union was an especially important ally for making the postwar future. The fact that the British were the past, not the future, was then shown clearly later that same year when the Japanese attack on Malaysia, Singapore, and Burma produced a military collapse as calamitous for the British position in Asia as the fall of France had been in Europe. The future would not be between London and Washington, but between Washington and Moscow. And it would not be collaborative.

By the time the U.S. was fully committed to fighting on both fronts for total victory it was obvious that backing up the British Empire behind the lines to keep a favorable balance of power would not be the future of American strategy. As the end of the war came the United States realized it now had half of the planet’s industrial and economic power. Obviously, the United States was going to inherit an unprecedented level of influence in global affairs. The question was, “how much, and to what extent?” It was here that the rhetorical tactics of those who had fought against “isolationism” would be deployed in a new and more expansive way. The United States would replace and surpass the British Empire. The sun would never set on the stars and stripes.

Wertheim deserves immense credit for keeping his personal opinions quite close to the chest. His main point is not to say U.S. policy was entirely wrong in the postwar era or to define a specific point where it went off the rails. He is interested in how events in history circumscribed how we, as a society, discuss issues of grand strategy and the American role in the world. Specifically, how these events created an ideological monopoly for political factions in both major parties whose desire is to see a ceaseless expanding and militarized U.S. foreign policy and ever increasing defense budgets despite there being no existential threat to American security.  Even if you, (like myself) believe that U.S. leadership over the immediate postwar world was largely an inevitable and initially positive thing, if you question any subsequent events to that or the logic of a continuing expansion you will be subjected to accusations of “isolationism” or failing to uphold the true American values of perpetual messianic conversion of as much of the world as possible to our economic and political system. We have seen the results of the of the militarized post-9/11 strategic stance for most of the Twenty-First Century as well as the numerous refugee flows and state collapses fueled by regime change and proxy war operations in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Syria.

Perhaps more critically for a DC-based policymaking audience is the question of setting limits in the name of a sustainable national security stance. A simple look over the history of great powers begs the question: what major power in history, be it empire or not, has not been fatally undermined by over-expansion? As commitments expand further and further from core areas of interest the expense of military deployment increases and the desire for the average citizen to support those deployments decreases. With this comes a militarization of the overall political culture and the rise of mercenaries. That leads us here, to policies of endless war that enrich private contractors and support politicians tied to their lobbyists, but of no provable benefit to the average citizen at home, and outright chaos and destruction imposed on people abroad. Just taking the War on Terror alone, its apparent there is an enormous cost and very little, if any, gain to be had in the present strategic posture. What we face now is not an existential question of state survival due to foreign threats, but a choice between endless expansion for its own sake or a more sustainable path that has been delegitimized by the rhetoric of a vastly different time with completely dissimilar security imperatives. The call of threatening global militarism in today’s age is revealed to be coming from inside of the house.

One of the most eye-opening parts of Wertheim’s book is a map near the end that shows the global reach of potential future U.S. military bases as imagined by strategists in 1945. Even in that time of unprecedented American power, far more than the U.S. has today compared to our its rivals, it was nowhere near the number as currently exists. As U.S. power relative the rest of the planet has declined, it has increased, rather than decreased, the military nature of its presence abroad. This tends to trap us in quagmires with policymakers often unwilling to extract us from due to fear of looking defeatist or beholden to the chimera of isolationism. Furthermore, the assumption that power vacuums abroad are net benefits to U.S. rivals can be thoroughly debunked seeing the dangerous and intractable nature of conflicts in many of these regions are more likely to become a burden than a positive gain for them. “Tomorrow The World” reminds us that it wasn’t always this way, and it doesn’t have to remain so either. If we can expand the options of discourse on grand strategy, we can find a superior and more sustainable path out of our present predicaments.

The Sun Never Sets on Postwar America was originally published on Global Security Review.

The United States can only sanction and indict so many people before discovering that this alone will neither prevent nor deter future cyberattacks. The United States must have a unified plan to confront cyberaggression through defensive and offensive action in the cyber realm. This position may mean protecting fragile democratic allies and conducting coordinated cyber strikes against malignant state and non-state actors.

While the latest cyberattack is still under investigation, authorities suspect that a Russian-backed group known as Cozy Bear hacked a management company called SolarWinds via its Orion tool, which is used to monitor outages. Then, between March and June 2020, this group inserted malware into its updates, impacting countless federal and private systems.

It was only when cybersecurity firm FireEye discovered the breach that the hack was revealed. FireEye noted that this attack was conducted by “a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities.” Indeed, Russia has previously used malware to steal critical information, but this attack was much different, focusing on “supply-side” vulnerabilities, including SolarWinds’ monitoring products. In 2018, the Government Accountability Office outlined the cybersecurity challenges related to supply-side risks (though they admitted that an attack of this magnitude was left out).

This “sophisticated” attack reportedly used IP addresses located in the United States, all while evading the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s costly and sophisticated intrusion detection system called Einstein. The malware sat dormant until activated, sending sensitive information to the hackers.

This cyberattack is concerning due to Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election through a coordinated information operations campaign that included a sophisticated social media strategy, hacking, and the release of compromising information via Wikileaks. Russian-backed agents also allegedly attempted to hack voting systems in nearly all 50 states. These agents could delete or change voter data. Russia also used a quasi-private company known as the Internet Research Agency to create a “troll farm” to influence social media.

According to a congressional report, the 2016 meddling intended to “sow discord in American politics and society.” The response to the Russian interference was lukewarm. The United States indicted 12 Russians for operating a military agency called the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, and the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned some Russian entities and individuals. Clearly, these penalties didn’t go far enough because here we are again.

The United States isn’t Russia’s only target. The Russian-backed group Fancy Bear (the same group involved in 2016’s Russian meddling) hacked Montenegro’s government apparatus, hoping to influence the country’s impending NATO membership. In 2007, Estonia—which introduced online voting in 2001 and was considered one of the most technologically advanced nations globally—was also a victim of a Russian information operations campaign involving hacking and disinformation. Russia also conducted coordinated information operation campaigns involving social media and hacking in countries like Ukraine.

Nation-states such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are operating with impunity in the cyber domain. Each of these respective countries has carried out cyberattacks on the United States, its allies, or private-sector entities. It is almost like the Wild West in the cyber realm, and these world powers have proven time and time again that no matter how much in good faith the United States acts, they will cooperate only in words alone.

There are some realistic options on the table to prevent and deter further cyberaggression. In 2011, President Obama defined attacks in the cyber realm as potential acts of war. With this in mind, the United States can respond with conventional means but is highly unlikely to react in such a manner. On the other hand, the United States has other tools in its arsenal for an appropriate response.

First, the United States needs an oversight board that can proactively and expeditiously identify government vulnerabilities, make recommendations, and penalizes contracted companies for security violations. While valuable, the report on Russian meddling took years to produce. In theory, an oversight board would be flexible enough to both produce reports and perform risk assessments.

While the hack is still under investigation, there are some red flags that cannot be ignored. SolarWinds’s server was left relatively unprotected with a weak password (solarwinds123), and the sign-in certificate was somehow manipulated to hack the systems. SolarWinds’s server was continuously exposed since at least 2018, thereby allowing anyone with a valid sign-in certificate to log onto its network. A government oversight board would have the ability to investigate and penalize a company or an individual for placing such compromising information online.

Second, a comprehensive systems upgrade is critical. Current U.S. cyber defenses — such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Einstein — failed because they didn’t have sensors to recognize and neutralize malicious traffic or an information-sharing agreement with agencies to identify servers that shouldn’t be sending information internationally. Likewise, the Pentagon’s cloud-based software is antiquated and vulnerable to attack (an upgrade is well in order). Of course, such upgrades require both funding and congressional will.

Third, cyber-offensive activities should be an option in the future. The National Security Agency has the capability and the know-how to conduct cyberattacks through the agency’s elite hacking unit known as Tailored Access Operations. However, such operations are rarely acknowledged, and that should change. There should be known penalties for cyberaggression.

The National Security Agency conducted a cyberattack against Iran using the Stuxnet virus, but the operation received little acknowledgment from the U.S. government. The Stuxnet virus destroyed thousands of Iran’s centrifuges at the Natanz powerplant that could have been used to make a nuclear weapon.

Additionally, in 2018, the U.S. Cyber Command conducted an attack against Russia’s Internet Research Agency, successfully disrupting Russia’s information operations campaign during that year’s U.S. mid-term elections. This attack was acknowledged by the U.S. government and also sent a message that cyber aggression will not be tolerated.

The United States must be ready to respond to further cyber aggression in the future. The United States must shore up its cyber defenses and leverage cyber offense as an option for deterrence. Countries like Russia don’t seem to care too much for the carrot approach. Perhaps it is time for the stick.

Déjà Vu: Hacked Again was originally published on Global Security Review.

– Sun Tzu, c.500 BC

The flood gates of the information age have been blasted open forever. Short of global electrical failure, robots taking over the world, or mankind’s evacuation of the planet, global connectivity, instant communications, and massive information accessibility are here to stay, along with all the dangers and benefits related. The internet and network connectivity have become too integrated within the basic daily functions of societies and nations for information services to be overly regulated or censored, and as the world becomes perpetually more dependent on networks to function, more technologically adept generations grow up with the entire history of human knowledge at their fingertips. The entire cyber warfare enterprise of Computer Network Attack (CNA) and Computer Network Defense (CND) is blossoming, along with telecommunications and other vital industries, which means more and more people will be trained in these areas, in addition to information technology and computer sciences. As people are trained to operate in a network-centric world, more of the world will be under a perpetual threat from cyberattacks, and more people will be employed to defend it.

The global cyber arms race is in full swing, and American leadership is necessary to ensure the future of freedom of thought and individuality in cyberspace. The alternative is a sharp contrast, centered around the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) communist censorship and propaganda machine, combined with their allies around the world, intent on securing ultimate power and crushing the United States in the process. This article examines the physical and cyberspace dangers posed by the PRC and its allies, detailing a long-term strategic trend of anti-American actions taken in recent history that have not been adequately addressed or publicized. This article begins with an examination of a variety of actions the PRC has taken against America over multiple decades and the extent of their success. An interconnected multinational web of espionage, cyber warfare, and targeted actions designed to collapse the United States is then exposed, highlighting the need for renewed American leadership in cyberspace and on the world stage. Any action taken against any entity with the purpose of degrading their capabilities, manipulating them, or spying on them, using the realm of cyberspace as the primary conduit, is cyber warfare. A short explanation of cyber warfare basics is provided at the end of this article, with examples of what the cyber battlespace consists of.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Titan Rain Hackers

The PRC is the largest cyber threat on Earth, with the most extensively trained cyber espionage personnel, and the longest history of practical hacking expertise. The United States government did not prioritize cyber advancements until faced with the threat of other states, China, in particular, developing attack mechanisms in cyberspace that the United States had no defense against. This has set the U.S. behind in the cyber arms race, allowing the PRC to take the lead in cyber developments, perpetually. Unless the U.S. catches up with the PRC’s cyber developments and surpasses them, Americans and American organizations will continue to be targeted, manipulated and exploited by PRC cyber espionage efforts, unable to defend themselves, unable to distinguish between what is real or fake online, and unable to establish effective cybersecurity. The PRC’s success in cyber activities targeting the United States additionally exposes U.S. national security vulnerabilities within the U.S. cyber infrastructure which can be exploited, illustrating to the world how easy targeting the U.S. is and will continue to be until the U.S. cyber infrastructure is hardened, and until cyber actors begin to be publicly attributed and punished. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is the branch of the Chinese Communist Party that maintains control over cyber operations, primarily through its Unit 61398.¹ The PLA has additionally enhanced their intelligence operations by adapting their Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities to cyberspace by using networks for signals collections.

Advances in technology that allow communications technologies such as microphones and cameras to be combined with network interfaces like cell phones and laptop computers have further contributed to the potential damage cyber actors can have, improving the collection capabilities of intelligence organizations around the world as they are developed. With the combinations of these technologies, any device with a network interface, or that is connected in any way to any device with a network interface, which is also used for communications, can be compromised through cyberspace. The PRC has taken advantage of this factor by refocusing the signals intelligence collection element of the PLA’s military-technical reconnaissance bureau to cyber espionage.² The PRC’s focus continues to shift further towards cyber elements for both offensive, defensive, and espionage-related operations due to the digitization of information becoming widespread and inevitable as the world progresses forward in the information age. The process of global digitization is both beneficial and dangerous, simultaneously creating a wealth of information more readily available to the public than ever before, as well as a multitude of separate caches of information available to competent hackers that know how to infiltrate databases for cyberespionage.

The People’s Republic of China is a particularly effective threat due to the adaptation of their extensive intelligence collection techniques to cyber espionage. The PRC has been actively engaging in large scale and continuous espionage against American corporations and United States government organizations for decades to accelerate their own economic and military developments.³ These efforts have been extremely successful over the years, yielding top-level nuclear weapon designs, satellite and rocket technical information, and a wide range of government and corporate trade secrets.⁴As technologies have advanced, and the world has become networked, PRC espionage efforts have shifted into cyberspace, giving them more effective plausible deniability, greater overall access to sensitive information, and a larger field of targets to penetrate and steal from. While the PRC denies direct involvement, the Titan Rain espionage activities which took place in the first years of the twenty-first century, are widely believed to be the work of the PRC’s PLA.⁵ The cyber actors involved in Titan Rain successfully penetrated some of the most sensitive organizations in the United States.⁶

Tracked and documented by Shawn Carpenter for a year and a half, the Titan Rain cyber thieves penetrated a large number of secure networks, including the “systems of the U.S. Army Information Engineering Command, Defense Information Systems Agency, U.S. Army Space and Strategic Command, Army Aviation and Missile Command, Department of Energy, Homeland Security, State Department, and Naval War College,” extracting 10-20 terabytes of sensitive Department of Defense information.⁷ In addition to stealing more data than is contained in the entire Library of Congress,⁸ Titan Rain hackers also targeted the World Bank, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).⁹ The Titan Rain attackers, operating out of the Guangdong province of China, used Trojan horses to infiltrate systems, hijacked portions of hard drives in target systems to use for file encryption, erased their electronic fingerprints when finished, and left a reentry beacon to facilitate easy access at a later time.¹⁰

The PRC has long had a foreign espionage goal of advancing its economic and military status, and cyberspace has provided the opportunity for them to realize their vision of total “control of the world economic sector”,¹¹ which they’ve sought for some time. Chinese strategies for cyber warfare suggest the PRC believes that nothing is off-limits that does not create physical damage, that war is already happening in cyberspace on multiple levels and with multiple nations, and that “information systems are weapons” to be used to fight this ongoing war.¹² The extensive PRC space program and aspirations for developments in space technologies, in addition to the notable targets of NASA and the U.S. Army Space Command, suggest that the PRC is also engaging in cyber espionage to advance its space capabilities. Space-related targets likely include satellite developments, Anti-Satellite weapon technologies, dual-use space launch, and ballistic missile capabilities, space transportation developments, and technologies required to finish bringing the Chinese nuclear triad online with long-range strategic bombers. Titan Rain should be viewed as a major success for the Chinese hackers involved as well as the PRC government, who not only directly benefited the most from the stolen data but were able to maintain plausible deniability throughout years of operations, avoiding any kind of retribution.

The attackers were extremely effective at erasing evidence of their presence after completing operations. Shawn Carpenter’s rogue counter-hacking exploits which led him on a chase around the world are possibly the only reason Titan Rain was ever traced back to the Guangdong province of China and the PLA.¹³ Titan Rain’s exposure helps illuminate the repeating echo-chamber cycle of Chinese espionage against the United States, coming only a few years after the 1999 Congressional ‘Cox Committee’ investigation revelations about Chinese espionage campaigns. The ‘Cox Committee’ investigation showed the theft of various types of information and classified data, including highly sensitive thermonuclear weapons data being siphoned out of multiple National Weapons Laboratories by PRC operatives. The extent of their espionage effectively catapulted the PRC’s nuclear arsenal capability into a new and far more threatening era of strategic and miniature nuclear weaponry, data and technology, through successful technical data acquisition and the successful theft of “classified information” pertaining to “every currently deployed thermonuclear warhead” developed by the United States at that time.¹⁴

PRC operations have been uncovered at nearly every level of American society—from satellite corporations to national weapons laboratories dealing with nuclear data and advanced technologies. PRC espionage campaigns have led to the theft of advanced nuclear weapon design information from the U.S. on several known occasions, in addition to many likely unknown occasions due to the methods and practices used by the PRC being so effective and successful.¹⁵ By stealing information instead of producing it themselves, the PRC has been able to capitalize on American results that have taken “hundreds of millions of dollars,” and a multitude of tests to achieve.¹⁶ A frightening picture is painted when realizing that PRC collections activities in the U.S. are incalculable due to the nature of PRC collections procedures, which potentially make every American citizen of Chinese descent, every PRC immigrant, and every foreign national from the PRC potential collection agents according to PRC doctrine.¹⁷ By adapting these techniques to cyber espionage, the PRC minimizes their potential for failure, essentially sending armies of hackers to target small amounts of information each, echoing again the revelations from the ‘Cox Committee’ that showed many hundreds of Chinese spies each targeting small pieces of information across the United States.

This method is highly effective in the cyber arena. More hackers being used means more computers operating, which allows more targets to be targeted, and ultimately makes every target easier to infiltrate and exploit. The PRC’s cyberspace strategy would fail without their international calling card of denying everything, which falls in line with ancestral doctrines of Chinese strategy, most notably Sun Tzu’s declarations that “all warfare is based on deception,” and that the best way to defeat an enemy is to defeat them without a fight.¹⁸ The PRC leadership, including President Xi Jinping when he met with President Obama in 2013, consistently denies any involvement with any hostile cyber activities traced back to China,¹⁹ including the Titan Rain hackers. In response to the Titan Rain attacks, and a large number of other incidents involving the PRC, the United States and the world have raised cybersecurity and cyber warfare to one of the most important topics facing the world, along with the legislation, policies, and cybersecurity initiatives to go with it.

While a direct response to Titan Rain was not possible due to a lack of positive attribution of the incidents, several measures have been taken in response to the escalation of cyber threats, in large part due to the extensive success of Titan Rain, and the PRC’s official stance on cyber espionage. Since Titan Rain’s exposure, the United States has initiated its Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, which focuses on enhancing cooperation, intrusion detection, cyber counterintelligence, and research and development of new cybersecurity tools and tracking technologies which will enable the U.S. intelligence community to more effectively attribute cyber incidents, and enhance U.S. national and economic security.²⁰ Part of the focus of the U.S. has also significantly shifted to defending private sector economic partners which directly impact the U.S. government and Americans, in a response to the massive PRC targeting of the corporate sector of the United States for economic gain.²¹ Unfortunately, the PRC does not act alone against the United States and was named alongside Russia, Iran, and North Korea as a “strategic threat” to the “prosperity and security” of the United States, in the 2018 Department of Defense Cyber Strategy (2018).²²

The Cyber Threat Alliance: Is the friend of my enemy my enemy—or my friend?

China’s neighbor and nominal ally, North Korea, has also enhanced its presence in cyberspace. North Korea has established a cell phone network in the country and has also been “implicated in malicious cyber activity … since 2009,” including being credited with erasing “critical data,” from government, media, and banking networks in South Korea in 2013.²³ With the combined technologies of cell phones and network access, North Korea has the ability to conduct cyber operations, including espionage operations. North Korea’s reliance on the PRC for connectivity has also integrated them into the Chinese cyber infrastructure, allowing them to operate worldwide. Developing cyber warfare capabilities is inevitable and highly desirable for North Korea. Their development and implementation of an intranet is substantial progress in this area, and because it exists in combination with both a “national fiber-optic network,” and the national cell phone network, North Korea has everything needed to conduct cyber warfare operations.²⁴ To demonstrate this, North Korea released a “hard drive erasing malware” attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November of 2014.²⁵ After the Sony hacks, multiple targets were hit in South Korea, including a “power and nuclear operator”,²⁶ which is a concerning shift in focus from entertainment to critical infrastructure. If this shift in North Korea’s broader international focus of cyber targets continues, North Korea will become a substantial threat to U.S. national security through cyberspace.

The North Korean General Reconnaissance Bureau’s Unit 121 is “strongly suspected of having a presence in China,” and participates actively in cyber activities for North Korea.²⁷ North Korea uses cyber operatives in other countries as well to take advantage of those nations’ networks, making tracing and attributing cyber acts to the North Korean government very difficult. Unit 121 being primarily based out of China essentially gives North Korea access to the Chinese cyber infrastructure while minimizing the potential for international repercussions for North Korea if caught conducting cyber warfare activities. At the same time, Chinese cyber agents can use the North Korean cyber bureau as a cover to conduct PRC cyber operations, providing PRC operatives with plausible deniability if caught, thereby avoiding the same international repercussions that would have a much greater impact for the PRC than for North Korea. Advances in North Korean government-sponsored cybercrime have grown quickly, leading to financial institutions being targeted around the world, to include a “successful cyber heist” from a New York Federal Reserve bank account in Bangladesh, costing “an estimated $81 million.”²⁸

Across the ocean in America’s backyard, the PRC has another substantial cyber ally – Cuba. The Castro Regime pursued a strategic course of action aimed at facilitating the long term internal combustion of the United States of America for decades, along with significant allies that have participated with them on a global scale, including Iran, the Russian Federation (RF), and the PRC, who has assisted in upgrading their outdated SIGINT technologies. Cuba is “perfectly located” to intercept “all U.S. communications,” in “the only place outside of Fort Meade in the Western Hemisphere” that provides access to “large-scale interception of [U.S.] communications.”²⁹ When combined with the communist government’s endless need for finances to continue operating and surviving, the “trafficking of U.S. secrets” to the rest of the international community provides an enticing and lucrative business opportunity for the nation.³⁰

Cuba is a significant cyber force, partially because of its location, and partially because of their associations and allies. One major threat factor from Cuba is their deeply rooted cooperation with Iranian intelligence operatives pervading Latin America, including active involvement with established Quds Force “operations units in Venezuela”,³¹ where “Cuban intelligence involvement … is deep and wide.”³² Another threat factor is Cuban cooperation with the strategic goals of Russian and Chinese subversion operations within the United States and around the world. When these nations’ forces are combined and viewed as a single cooperating threat, the following disturbing threat landscapes become clearly intertwined:

• The Cuban Military Intelligence Directorate’s premium communications interception capabilities;
• Iranian Quds Force operatives’ ability to freely multiply across America’s southern border, after being trained by Cuban intelligence to act, speak and present themselves as Hispanic in order to hide their Middle Eastern origins;
• Combined Cuban and Iranian interests in supporting Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations;³³
• Massive offensive Chinese and Russian cyber operations targeting the American economic, political, election and technological infrastructures;³⁴
• Russian espionage training and nuclear technology expertise exported to America’s enemies around the world.

When these forces are viewed as a whole, the market for intelligence trading of United States-based information is a very black market indeed.

For instance, Russia trained the Cuban intelligence service. Cuba supports Hezbollah in Venezuela, with Iran, who is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power due to Russia and China. North Korea’s governance is in flux due to COVID-19, with power changes potentially shifting the nation away from peace. Russia continuously takes action to facilitate, and advocates for, America leaving the Middle East, with Iran’s help, including targeting American proxy forces around the world while incentivizing agitators where American forces operate, most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran partially controls Iraq, Cuba and Iran control Venezuela, and China has become the single most dominant force in cyberspace, working with Russia and other actors to subvert American stability. The global melting pot is about to start boiling, and if the United States does not re-establish itself as the global leader in cyberspace, technological advancements, and network security, the world of tomorrow could turn into a very unpleasant place. Active cyber engagements against the United States are not unique to the PRC and Russia, and another underappreciated cyber player needs to be addressed – Iran.

The Islamic Republic of Iran maintains a high degree of control over its society, including the business world of Iran, which provides the Iranian government and its cyber organization, the Iranian Cyber Army (ICA), with cyber assets working inside and outside the government.³⁵ In March 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) indicted seven Iranians working for two Iranian companies, ITSecTeam and Mersad Company, who were engaged in cyber warfare activities against the United States on behalf of the Iranian government.³⁶ The hackers and the companies have known ties to the Iranian government, which gives them access to the State cyber infrastructure in addition to the business cyber infrastructure that their organizations use to conduct daily business. The Iranian government has used a combination of government and State-sponsored hackers for a variety of cyber activities since 2009, including targets in the United States. The attacks for which the Iranians mentioned above were indicted for involved a successful penetration of the Bowmen Dam in New York’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. The access gained by the hackers would have provided them, and the Iranian government, with full control of the dam’s control functions, had the dam not been fortuitously offline for maintenance at the time.³⁷

The ICA, acting as an arm of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has also targeted online financial assets, such as bank websites. According to the FBI indictment, the organizations were assaulted over a long period of time on a regular basis with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, costing American financial institutions “tens of millions of dollars” to fix.³⁸ Victims of these attacks included 46 major American financial institutions and “hundreds of thousands” of American customers.³⁹ The ICA also targeted Twitter in 2009, started a cyber war with China by attacking a Chinese search engine in 2010 called Baidu, and has targeted anti-Iranian government and anti-Islamic websites in Europe and around the world for defacement.⁴⁰ In 2016, Iranian hackers also compromised “15 million Iranian users” through the messaging program, Telegram, targeting anti-Iranian activists, and using tactics similar to the IRGC’s cyber tactics.⁴¹ The Iranian government declined to comment.

Iran’s connections with various terrorist organizations around the world, including funding and material support to them,⁴² also suggest that cyber capabilities, cyber training, or cyber tools may be shared between the ICA and cyber terrorists. The world’s leading state sponsor of transnational radical Islamic terrorism gaining cyber capabilities that allow them to successfully penetrate the command and control systems of infrastructure networks and facilities within the United States is a scary concept and should be a top concern for the intelligence community and policymakers in America. Adversarial nations, including Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, and Cuba, have formed a massive global alliance to take advantage of perceived vulnerabilities in U.S. national security, and have the potential to establish themselves as the leading force in the world if left unchecked in cyberspace. These authoritarian cyber-threat nations do not care about individual liberties, viewing freedoms as a threat to their continued existence. It is therefore in their interest to eliminate freedom and liberty wherever they can, and many of them have attempted to do so in the U.S. through election interference down to the city level, infiltration of campaigns, and influence operations designed to subvert one of the most important tenets of American independence – the right to vote.

In the relatively near future, governments, corporations, and individuals may lose the ability to effectively keep their own secrets and personal information safe, the ability to ensure secure and accurate democratic election processes, and the ability to control or monitor the massive quantities of information that are constantly flowing through cyberspace. The field of cryptanalysis is on track to perpetually surpass advances in cryptology unless mathematics revelations start to happen that allow more complex algorithms to be applied to the encryption process. This would leave the field of CND perpetually behind the realm of CNA that attackers use to exploit systems. If America does not shift this trend and break the global encryption algorithms first, U.S. leadership in the world will suffer, and individual liberties will be put at great risk. Individual citizens of the United States and the rest of the free world have a responsibility that has been widely neglected as the world moves into the information age—to protect themselves against authoritarian subversion of their freedoms.

Cyberspace is not inherently safe, it is inherently unsafe, and the carefree use of electronic devices contributes to authoritarian goals of eliminating liberty from the world. Americans must gain a better understanding of network security by enhancing their education and knowledge of the vulnerabilities inherent in using electronic devices in order to secure their freedoms in cyberspace and maintain democracy in the world. Without fair and secure elections, liberty will die. America must re-establish itself as a global leader on the world stage, militarily, in cyberspace, and with regards to human advancements and expansion into space, in order to maintain and advance the principles of individual freedom and humanitarianism in the international community. The international community, for its part, has responded to these increased cyber threats with the creation of the Tallinn Manual, which correlates existing international laws with cyberspace activities in an attempt to apply the existing laws of war to cyber espionage and cyberattacks.⁴³ By enhancing the authority of law over cyberspace, law enforcement organizations and national governments will be better prepared and capable of addressing future cyber activities targeting their nations or their people. While the Tallinn Manual is a good first step, the staircase keeps climbing, and it is up to the people to move forward, step by step into the future.

Defining the Cyber Battlespace: Cyber Warfare, Networks and Threats

Cyber warfare is divided into offensive and defensive activities. Offensive cyber warfare activities encompass the developing field of CNA operations, the purpose of which is to cause physical or operational damage to an adversary, either using solely cyber capabilities, or in conjunction with other activities of warfare.⁴⁴ CND operations encompass defensive cyber activities, including cyber counterintelligence initiatives designed to detect, prevent, and counter CNA activities directed against the defender. Cyber defenses include protective software and hardware, white-hat hackers who search for weaknesses in order to secure them, and other measures taken against unauthorized network access or malicious activity. Cyber Network Exploitation (CNE), or cyberespionage, however, is the most prominent form of cyber warfare today. CNE is conducted on a regular basis by every nation in the world with a cyber capability, in addition to many non-state actors that use nation-state infrastructures to carry out operations. Stealing information is not a just cause for conventional war, which results in a variety of relatively low risk CNE operations with potentially high payoffs, depending on the situation. This dynamic makes CNE operations an enticing and widespread activity that is desirable and lucrative for nations and individuals to engage in.

Networks are one of the primary methods of entry for CNE operations, and access to them needs to be protected to ensure information security. Networks are essentially circuits of devices linked together. Networks can either be closed or open. A closed network is contained within itself with no external access, such as the internal computer network of a business, where users can only access the network from a computer physically connected to that network. An open network, on the other hand, can be accessed by anyone from anywhere, so long as they know how to gain access or have access to a device that is authorized. The internet is an open network, and as such, provides a conduit for access to all other networks connected to it. The SIPRNet is a Secret-level classified internet network used by the U.S. military, which is an open network like the internet, but which is not connected to the internet and cannot be accessed by devices not authorized to access it. Networks can be accessed through other networks, through software, through hardware, or through direct interface, which means every network can be compromised through a variety of paths, all of which must be protected and monitored.

Networks can be compromised through inadequate software security, compromised hardware components, through the internet or another device on the same network, or directly by manual interface. Hackers and programmers can manipulate the software supply chain of a target in order to gain access to a closed network through software programming designed to create a back door into the system. By compromising hardware components, access can also be granted in much the same way. When supply chains for electronics are outsourced to foreign countries by the United States, end-users of American electronics are immediately put at risk for being compromised by whichever nation the supply components are being manufactured in. Closed networks of computers consist of multiple devices connected to one another. By gaining access to one device on the network, the entire network can be compromised. All of these methods of network exploitation must be constantly and perpetually secured and monitored in order to detect and prevent threats to the network’s integrity. Threats can be posed by essentially anyone with a computer and an internet connection to any network that is connected to the internet, or connected to any device directly or indirectly which is in turn connected to the internet or connected to any device that has the capability of logging onto the internet through WiFi.⁴⁵

¹   Phillip Pool, “War of the Cyber World: The Law of Cyber Warfare,” The International Lawyer 47, no. 2 (2013): 299-323.

²   James Hughes, “China’s Place in Today’s World,” The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies 35, no. 2 (2010): 167-223.

³   Select Committee of the United States House of Representatives, “Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. House of Representatives (Washington D.C.; U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999): ii-xxxvii, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/pdf/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851.pdf.

⁴   Select Committee of the United States House of Representatives, “Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China,” ii-xxxvii.

⁵   Gary Adkins, “Red Teaming the Red Team: Utilizing Cyber Espionage to Combat Terrorism,” Journal of Strategic Security 6, no. 5 (2013): 6.

⁶   Timothy Thomas, “Google Confronts China’s “Three Warfares”,” Parameters 40, no. 2 (2010): 101-113.

⁷   Adkins, “Red Teaming the Red Team,” 6.

⁸   Pool, “War of the Cyber World.”

⁹   Thomas, “Google Confronts China’s “Three Warfares”.”

¹⁰ Nathan Thornburgh, “The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies (And the Man Who Tried to Stop Them),” Time (2005), http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/csep590/05au/readings/titan.rain.htm.

¹¹ Thomas, “Google Confronts China’s “Three Warfares”.”

¹² Thomas, “Google Confronts China’s “Three Warfares”.”

¹³ Thornburgh, “The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies.”

¹⁴  Select Committee of the United States House of Representatives, “Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China,” 60-95.

¹⁵  Select Committee of the United States House of Representatives, “Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China,” ii-xxxvii.

¹⁶  Select Committee of the United States House of Representatives, “Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China,” ii-xxxvii.

¹⁷  Select Committee of the United States House of Representatives, “Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China,” 2-57.

¹⁸ Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Translated by Lionel Giles, (London, UK: Luzac and Co., 1910): 2, 5, http://www.artofwarsuntzu.com/Art%20of%20War%20PDF.pdf.

¹⁹ Emilio Iasiello, “China’s Three Warfares Strategy Mitigates Fallout from Cyber Espionage Activities,” Journal of Strategic Security 9, no. 2 (2016): 53.

²⁰ Barack Obama, “The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative,” The White House (2011), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/cybersecurity.pdf.

²¹ Obama, “The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.”

²² Department of Defense, “2018 Department of Defense Cyber Strategy Summary,” Department of Defense (2018): 1, https://media.defense.gov/2018/Sep/18/2002041658/-1/-1/1/CYBER_STRATEGY_SUMMARY_FINAL.PDF.

²³ Department of Defense, “Military and Security Developments Involving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 2013,” Department of Defense (2014): 11, https://www.ncnk.org/sites/default/files/content/resources/publications/North_Korea_Military_Power_Report_2013-2014.pdf.

²⁴ Department of Defense, “Military and Security Developments Involving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 2013,” 14.

²⁵ James Clapper, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, Statement for the Record,” Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2015): 3, http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Unclassified_2015_ATA_SFR_-_SASC_FINAL.pdf.

²⁶ Stephen Haggard and Jon Lindsay, “North Korea and the Sony Hack: Exporting Instability through Cyberspace,” Asia – Pacific Issues no. 117 (2015): 1-8.

²⁷ Haggard and Lindsay, “North Korea and the Sony Hack.”

²⁸ Daniel Coats, “Statement For the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence (2019): 6, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA—Unclassified-SSCI.pdf.

²⁹ U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Cuba’s Global Network of Terrorism, Intelligence, and Warfare, 112th Cong., 2d sess., May 17, 2012, serial 112-158: 26, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg74240/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg74240.pdf.

³⁰ U.S. Congress, Cuba’s Global Network of Terrorism, Intelligence, and Warfare, 19.

³¹ Dan Dickerson, “Iran Would Strike First,” Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International 16, no. 3 (2010): 30-36.

³² U.S. Congress, Cuba’s Global Network of Terrorism, Intelligence, and Warfare, 14.

³³ U.S. Congress, Cuba’s Global Network of Terrorism, Intelligence, and Warfare, 22-23.

³⁴ Coats, “Statement for the Record,” 5-6.

³⁵ James Farwell and Darby Arakelian, “What does Iran’s Cyber Capability Mean for Future Conflict?” The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 14, no. 1 (2013): 49-65.

³⁶ USAO – New York, Southern, “Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Charges Against Seven Iranians for Conducting Coordinated Campaign of Cyber Attacks Against U.S. Financial Sector on Behalf of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Sponsored Entities,” Department of Justice(2016), https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-charges-against-seven-iranians-conducting-coordinated.

³⁷ Loretta Lynch, “Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch Delivers Remarks at Press Conference Announcing Seven Iranians Charged for Conducting Cyber Attacks Against U.S. Financial Sector,” Justice News (2016), https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-loretta-e-lynch-delivers-remarks-press-conference-announcing-seven.

³⁸ Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Iranians Charged with Hacking U.S. Financial Sector,” FBI News (2016), https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/iranians-charged-with-hacking-us-financial-sector.

³⁹ USAO – New York, Southern, “Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Charges Against Seven Iranians for Conducting Coordinated Campaign of Cyber Attacks Against U.S. Financial Sector on Behalf of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Sponsored Entities.”

⁴⁰ Farwell and Arakelian, “What does Iran’s Cyber Capability Mean for Future Conflict?”

⁴¹ Joseph Menn and Yeganeh Torbati, “Exclusive: Hackers Accessed Telegram Messaging Accounts in Iran – Researchers,” Reuters (2016), http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-cyber-telegram-exclusive-idUSKCN10D1AM.

⁴² Library of Congress, “Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile,” Federal Research Division (2012), http://fas.org/irp/world/iran/mois-loc.pdf.

⁴³ Michael Schmitt, “Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare,” NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (2013), http://d-russia.ru/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/tallinnmanual.pdf.

⁴⁴ Mike Chapple and David Seidl, Cyberwarfare: Information Operations in a Connected World (Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Learning, 2014), 17-18.

⁴⁵ Chapple and Seidl, Cyberwarfare, 187.

Cyber World War: The People’s Republic of China, Anti-American Espionage, and the Global Cyber Arms Race was originally published on Global Security Review.

The terms of extremism and terrorism have been used interchangeably. However, there is a crucial distinction between the terms: all terrorists are extremists, but not all extremists are terrorists. Despite the latter, a fine line separates extremists from the turning point of embracing violence—thus becoming terrorists. This is because extremism is generally regarded as “the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and respect and tolerance for different faiths and beliefs” as per the 2015 UK’s Counter-Extremism Strategy. Furthermore, extremists may resort to terrorism to coerce governments and the general public to give in to their cause.

Over the past couple of decades, extremism and terrorism were mostly associated with religious causes, especially Islamic extremism, which present a persistent threat to numerous states. Yet, the current pandemic crisis may fuel such a risk and threats from other extremism categories. This includes the right-wing, left-wing, and single-issue extremism. While clearly articulating from now why and how the case is cumbersome, government and national security leaders can relate early warning signs to counter these threats.

Some arguments are claiming that terrorist groups are currently preoccupied with protecting their members against the coronavirus. However, different incidents that took place over April 2020 points to the direct opposite. In fact, in its mid-March al-Naba newsletter, ISIS urged its followers to launch attacks in times of crisis and show no mercy.

Earlier in April, 25 soldiers in Mali were killed in a jihadist attack. On the 14th of April, in an operation where one police officer killed, Egyptian security forces exchanged fire. They eliminated seven terrorists who were part of a cell planning to conduct attacks during the Easter holiday in Egypt. Also during mid-April, the Tunisian security authorities foiled a terrorist plan to spread the coronavirus to Tunisian security forces by coughing, sneezing, and spitting.

On the 21st of April 2020, it was announced that one of Europe’s most wanted terrorists and ISIS affiliate, Abdel Majed Abdel Bary, was recently arrested by the Spanish police in Almeria where he settled in during the coronavirus lockdown. Abdel Bary reached Spain via a boat, and local newspapers indicated that he intended to return to the UK. The return intentions of Abdel Bary – who was arrested with another two persons in his apartment – remains unclear. In France, on the 27th of April, a 29-year-old Frenchman was also arrested. The man, who was not identified, has slammed his car into police cars and motorcycles, injuring three officers. It was found that the man has pledged allegiance to ISIS in a letter found in his car. A couple of days later, in a statement by the Danish authorities on the 30th of April, the police in Denmark prevented a terrorist attack with a possible “militant Islamic motive.” The arrested man was already suspected of attempting to obtain ammunition and firearms. On the 30th of April, in one of the deadliest attacks that month, ten Egyptian army personnel were killed in a terrorist attack. The incident, which included an officer, a non-commissioned officer, and eight soldiers, had an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated under their armored vehicle in Bir El-Abd in North of Sinai.

Looking at Iraq, we can see a rise in ISIL (ISIS) operations over the past few months, wherein the first three months of 2020, 566 attacks were conducted by the group in Iraq. Not only that, the group’s attacks have intensified, but the group appears to be strengthening. Given their recent attacks in Syria and Iraq, it is argued that the current pandemic has already demonstrated how durable and resilient ISIS ais In addition to that, other armed extremist groups are scaling up their targeted attacks. This can be evident by the recent assassination of Hisham al Hashimi, 47, who was fatally shot outside his house in Baghdad. Hisham was among the world’s leading security experts on ISIS and other armed groups. Iraqi officials indicated that Hisham received threats recently from Iran backed militias.

Because of the abovementioned incidents – even if they may appear minor and sporadic to some security strategists – it is worth noting that terrorist groups may take advantage of the global focus of countering the pandemic and launch attacks. Furthermore, terrorist groups may view the global pandemic crisis as an opportunity to win more recruits, supporters, sympathizers, and then strike harder than before should the right moment be presented. In this regards, Al-Qaeda suggested in its statement on the 30th of March, that non-Muslims use their time in quarantine to learn about Islam. In addition, these groups have never failed to exploit social media to advance their cause and propaganda. That said, as the pandemic continues, people are spending more time online, terrorist groups are likely to amplify their utilization of social media to further spread their dangerous rhetoric along with widely used hashtags of the terms: #Coronavirus, #COVID2019 or #COVID19 to ensure a wider audience reach for their social media posts.

Not only that, terrorist groups may use the time of the pandemic crisis to propagate their ideology or launch attacks but also use the time to reinforce their bases to remerge in a more potent form after the pandemic crisis. This can be specifically true given that most terrorist groups are taking some of the African and Middle Eastern countries like Libya, Chad, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and others as their hubs and operational base. Most of these nations are developing countries, so it is possible that while these nations’ authorities and security forces are focusing their capabilities on curbing the coronavirus spread, that terrorist groups would utilize such a window period to harness their abilities. This is particularly evident from the very recent series of terrorist attacks launched by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, killing dozens of soldiers. The attacks probably took advantage of the local authorities scaling back the number of troops on the ground due to the coronavirus pandemic. A similar expansionary approach is also seen by jihadists in the Sahel region. Thus, further confirming the threat resurgence of organized terrorist groups as a result of the pandemic crisis.

Although the terrorism threat appears to be relatively regional, it requires intergovernmental and a multinational collective counterterrorism approach. With many of the terrorist groups and affiliates adopting a horizontal structure, one group in one country might be influencing the actions of other groups in many other different countries. Not to forget lone wolf terrorism, which would only take the individual perpetrator to be radicalized by merely reading and following the propaganda and extremist ideologies widely available online.

While intergovernmental counterterrorism frameworks, cooperation, and efforts already exist, the current pandemic crisis still presents an unprecedented challenge to many countries. This includes the redirection of security forces and militaries’ actions in curbing the pandemic spread, implementing lockdowns, curfews, regulating borders entry, and supporting the national overwhelmed healthcare authorities. Though the latter is important to ensure the general public safety, security bodies mustn’t lose their focus on countering terrorism, reinforcing border security, and stepping up surveillance and intelligence activities to anticipate any risks or terrorism plots. Additionally, extremist – but nonviolent – groups should be closely monitored during the pandemic and economic crisis to counter how such groups might use the pandemic to advance their propaganda and gain more sympathy from the general public. This includes right-wing, left-wing, and single-issue extremism groups such as climate activists who turn to terrorism.

Furthermore, as the economic recession builds up, different countries may implement spending cuts and reduce budgets dedicated to national security, intelligence, military, and law enforcement concerning various security programs, including counterterrorism. Accordingly, this should not be the case at all. Even if the economic recession is currently taking its toll on all sectors, government spending, and budgets dedicated to national security, intelligence, military, and law enforcement, counterterrorism efforts should not be reduced. As extremists and terrorist groups are likely to exploit the coronavirus pandemic and post-pandemic economic crisis for their benefit and incite violence, national governments should not undermine such a dormant yet imminent threat while tackling the economic consequences of the pandemic crisis. In this respect, military, national security, intelligence, and law enforcement bodies across the world should increase, and hone their counterterrorism capabilities, intelligence sharing, and international cooperation.

COVID-19 and the Increasing Risk of Terrorism was originally published on Global Security Review.

Sources close to the SDF initially reported that the protesters limited their demands by requesting a solution to many minor issues. Still, soon enough, it became evident that it was not the case and the problem—and a major one—was the presence of SDF in the area. The demonstrators were quick to turn from chanting slogans to taking control of towns: in a single day, they captured all of Shuhayl, Al-Hawayej, Diban and forced the SDF members to leave before blocking the roads.

The protests were sparked by a series of assassinations of influential leaders of the Al-Aqidat and Al-Baqara tribes. Three Deir ez-Zor sheikhs were killed in less than a week: Sheikh Suleiman Khalaf al-Kassar from Al-Aqidat was shot in Busayra village on July 30th. The next day Sheikh Suleiman Al-Weis who belonged to Al-Baqara, was shot in the head by two gunmen on a motorcycle in Al-Dahla. Finally, Sheikh Muttshar al-Hamoud al-Hifl was shot in the outskirts of Al-Hawayej on Sunday, August 2. His relative, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Hifl, was also wounded in the incident but survived.

In a peculiar coincidence, a few weeks before the assassinations, the tribal leaders were invited to a meeting with the SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi with the U.S. servicemen also present. The agenda reportedly included co-operation between the tribes and the SDF. It was reported that at least one of the victims, Muttshar al-Hifti, declined to participate and to engage with the Americans.

An insight into the details of these meetings can be gained through the reports about an oil deal allegedly struck by the SDF and a little-known American oil developer Delta Crescent LLC. Delta Crescent was granted exclusive rights for production, refinement, and export of the oil from Deir ez-Zor fields, potentially bringing the participants an annual profit of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to statements made by U.S. officials. The deal was met with a harsh response from the Syrian government, which labeled it a “deal between thieves.”

According to sources on the ground, the implication is that those who fell victim to the assassinations shared this view and opposed the deal. Their removal, however, has clearly failed to deliver the results intended by the masterminds behind their deaths, yet another time when the Kurds were thrown to the wolves by the U.S. who is accustomed to making their allies bear the consequences of the reckless pursuit of the American interests.

Meanwhile, the SDF started to amass forces in the vicinity of the areas shaken by the unrest. The reinforcements sent from Al-Shadadi, Al-Sousa, and Baghuz are gathering at the U.S. military base near the Al-Omar oil field. Moreover, two U.S. Apache attack helicopters were spotted patrolling the area. These developments, combined with a lack of report on any negotiations between the protesters and the SDF leadership, paint a grim picture, indicating that the SDF likely intends to use force to disperse the protests.

It is not the first time the SDF resorts to the use of force when faced with the discontent of the local populace in north-eastern Syria, although this approach had never brought the desired result. All areas affected by the protests have been subjected to dozens of raids by the SDF and U.S. special forces. Reports on these operations unfailingly mentioned arrests of ISIS terrorists. They failed to mention, however, what the Pentagon files under the category of “collateral damage”—the deaths of civilians killed as a result of the actions of the U.S. military and its allies.

The upheaval in Deir ez-Zor is yet another evidence that the SDF, initially an independent movement, has degraded to a tool or a lever of American influence in Syria, and now finds itself fighting consequences instead of locating the root cause of the unrest – widespread corruption among the officials of the Kurdish administration and dramatic deterioration of the living conditions.

The regional turbulence created by Washington’s constantly shifting stance—or rather a lack of stance—on Syria has grown so strong it finally turned against the American interests. The latest escalation in Deir ez-Zor should be considered nothing but a byproduct of this ill-designed policy and, perhaps, marks the beginning of the end of the US and SDF hegemony in Syria’s North East.

Are The U.S. And Its Partners Losing Their Grip On Syria’s North East? was originally published on Global Security Review.

In order to gain attention and to distinguish itself from the Taliban, IS-K is employing new tactics like targeted killing, as well as complex attacks designed to instill as much fear as they can. Targeted killings has increased in major cities, especially in Kabul. IS-K has been capable of launching heart-wrenching, high-profile complex assults, killing hundreds of people.

Last May, IS-K militants stormed a maternity hospital in Kabul, killing newborn babies, mothers, nurses, and a police officer. On the same day, they targeted a funeral gathering in Nangarhar through a suicide attack, killing dozens of people. Similarly, they conducted a complex attack on a Sikh temple in March, killing 25 worshippers, in a ruthless targeting of the Hazara minority. The group also claimed responsibility for an attack on the U.S. military Bagram airbase in Parwan province.

With the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement, IS-K stands ready to inherit the role of violent spoiler. It poses a serious danger as it attracts fighters from across the region. IS-K, with its global agenda has been able to recruit fighters from more than a dozen countries. Militants from the Middle East under pressure in the Syria war have joined IS-K in Afghanistan. Foreign fighters from India, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria have joined their ranks in Afghanistan. Surprisingly, the suicide attacks on Sikh minorities was attributed to one of their Indian fighters, who hailed from Kerala. Battle hardened, educated, and professional fighters in the thousands are skillful in attracting foot soldiers and brainwashing the poverty-stricken illiterate population of the country.

In addition to ideological propaganda, IS-K has been using coercion, force, intimidation, and empty promises of finances to recruit local fighters. One major challenge for IS-K has been the xenophobic nature of Afghans and hate among local residents regarding their brutal tactics they used from the outset of their operations in the country. Moreover, extortion, taxation, and mineral resources exploitation, which are major sources of revenue for IS-K has also caused concerns among local Afghans.

With their fighters coming from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, IS-K has the capacity to destabilize Central Asia, once it gets a firm foothold in Afghanistan. This remains one of the major concerns of Russia and Iran who view IS-K as a group driven by Salafi ideology, working to destabilize Central Asia. Most of IS-K fighters come from the middle class and are operative in far flung areas. They have been successful in getting safe havens in the capital, Kabul.

IS-K has been active in nine provinces from Nangarhar and Kunar in the east, Jawzjan, Faryab, and Badakhshan in the north and Ghor in the center west. IS-K is viewed sympathetically by some ethnicities in the north. Key Tajik and Uzbek commanders like Mawlawi Satar and Mawlawi Abdullah Majid have already joined IS-K. Who are actively involved in the recruitment of ethnic Tajik and Uzbek fighters in their ranks. When their regional leader Aslam Farooqi was captured in Kandahar along with 12 Pakistani nationals—including 4 women, a Bangladeshi man, and 2 Russian speaking women—it is believed Farooqi was engaged in an effort to contact groups in the South in order to bring  them to their ranks.

Some security experts believe that IS-K lacks the capability to launch complex attacks on its own. Taliban’s hardline wing, the Haqqani network, is suspected of providing technical assistance to IS-K in conducting complex attacks. IS-K and Haqqani network share a mutual interest—to undermine the Kabul government control and credibility by conducting attacks in major cities. Thus, on one hand, the Taliban takes the blame out of itself while, on the other hand, they portray the weakness of the government, meanwhile, IS-K relevance is served better. Afghan Government calls IS-K as the new face of the Haqqani network.

IS-K is an emerging threat, which represents itself as a replacement of the Taliban. It seeks to establish a Caliphate beginning in South and Central Asia, which will expand as Muslims across the globe join. This will be horrendous not only for U.S. national security interests but can destabilize the whole region. With their recent brutal attacks, IS-K has proved the fact that we are faced with a renewed threat, a new reign of terror, limited but far more complex and violent.

With the U.S.-Taliban Deal in place, IS-K seeks to build a reign of terror in Afghanistan was originally published on Global Security Review.

Point of Order

Payment comes in many forms, not just money, and over time violence has always been paid for by the cheapest means possible, sometimes even just by allowing life to continue or through advancing promises of ideological or moral philosophies. Jihad, for example, is a direct bounty from Allah on the heads of all infidels, the reward being not financial at all, but promises of luxurious life after death. The most common form of payment is, of course, money and has been used widely for thousands of years to incentivize the public into helping catch or kill criminals or declared criminals of various forms. From wanted posters in the wild west to the modern-day Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) most wanted list, American law enforcement has continuously been a significant end-user of various types of bounty systems. Technically, all modern military forces are also a party to the payment-for-violence system as well, as the primary function of all militaries is either offensive or defensive killing operations, and they all receive payment from participating. Assassins, since humanity’s early days, have often performed their art for a variety of forms of payment, including revenge, land, influence, or positions in leadership, and of course, money. Some assassins and mercenaries have proven this point to the extreme by conducting operations for opposing factions of a single conflict, sometimes even simultaneously working for both. No matter which way the issue is framed, payment for death is a long-standing human tradition, and it is here to stay until the concept of violent conflict is eliminated.

Assassins

Assassination has commonly been used as a form of political terrorism. From a historical context, assassinations have been used to instigate larger movements, such as insurrections, rebellions, revolutions, and other events over time designed to conquer a social system or ideology of an era or region on Earth. In 1933, the attack on President-elect Roosevelt by an Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Zangara, was an attack on the concept of leadership itself. Zangara professed that it didn’t matter who held the office and that his target was the symbol of the Head of State—any Head of State—as he admitted to considering other U.S. Presidents and the King of Italy as targets as well.¹ The modern term ‘character assassination’ is based on this historical and persistent type of motivation for actual assassinations, where the ultimate goal is to target a public figure in a way that moves the public ideology surrounding the target in the desired way, which has become common in today’s political environment.

More to the point of payment for death, assassinations have been one of the most effective and persistent tools of ruling bodies, always. The first known writing describing methods of assassination is Kautilya’s Arthashastra (1915), an ancient text from India dated to somewhere between 300 BC and 300 AD. The text encompasses many areas of governing, including chapters concerning war strategy, poisons, spy techniques, and strategies for assassination-style killings.² While payment is not explicitly discussed, the text is clear that the persons used in these operations are employed as a form of combatants. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (1910), believed to be written in the 5th century BC, also briefly mentions assassination as a type of mission assigned to paid spies.³ Echoing the ancient Indian Arthashastra(1915), a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) file, A Study of Assassination (1953), that was declassified in 1997, likewise details modern versions of assassination techniques, potential weapon ideas, and methods to be used for killing,⁴ and presumably was used as a training doctrine for paid employees of the Agency from its estimated publication in 1953 until the assassination ban encompassed in Executive Order 12333, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Impacts achieved from assassinations, or other forms of paid-for violence, can vary from insignificant, like the Italian who failed to assassinate President-elect Roosevelt, to toppling governments or starting a major war. World War I, for example, was initiated by just such an act. Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence and leader of The Black Hand organization, Dragutin Dimitrijević, was the head of the snake that took a bite out of the Habsburg Monarchy by orchestrating the assassination of the heir presumptive, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on 28 June 1914. The same Dragutin Dimitrijević had led an overthrow of the Serbian Monarchy just a decade prior, in 1903, to install a puppet on the throne to enhance his power and political relations with Russia.⁵ The Black Hand, a unified “Serbian nationalist organization,” also known as “Unification or Death,”⁶ was recognized as an arm of the Serbian military, acting as an early twentieth-century clandestine organization much like modern Private Military Companies (PMC), with civilian members who could offer plausible deniability to the government when necessary.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was an advocate for peace,⁷ and at the time, most Serbians wanted to retaliate against Austria-Hungary for annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. The Archduke was; therefore, the primary obstacle preventing a war that Dimitrijević and many Serbians wanted to start. Ferdinand was also the heir to the throne, and the Emperor was dying, which provided Russia an opportunity to eliminate a Monarchy standing in the way of Russian expansionist ideas as well. This opportunity incentivized Russian approval of the assassination, even if it meant going to war as Serbia’s ally. War could not be achieved with the Archduke constantly advocating for peace and preventing any Austro-Hungarian aggression, so The Black Hand assassins, controlled by Dimitrijević, launched their operation. Ferdinand was attacked in his motorcade on his way to give a speech in Sarajevo, but the attack did not go as planned. The first assassin shot at Franz from a distance and missed; the second threw an explosive that ricocheted off the Archduke’s car and exploded under the vehicle following behind.⁸ This first attack failed, and the Archduke survived to give his speech, only to be targeted on the next leg of his journey through the city by the remaining assassins. As the motorcade came to a halt, Gavrilo Princip walked up to the vehicle and shot Franz in the neck, and his wife in the gut.⁹ Both died of their wounds shortly thereafter.

After the assassination of the Archduke, there was a military escalation of forces between Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and all of their allies. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914, one month after the assassination of the Archduke, after Serbia refused extraordinary terms offered by Austria-Hungary, which were not expected to be met anyway. Russia, allied with Serbia, mobilized its military upon this declaration of war, and Germany responded by declaring war on Russia, which caused Russia’s ally, France, to declare war on Germany. Then Germany invaded Belgium to get to Paris, instigating Britain, allied to Belgium and France, to declare war on Germany, followed a few weeks later by Japan, bound by a military treaty with Britain – Voila, World War I.¹⁰ While this is a unique assassination in the history of assassination because the goal was achieved, this is not an unprecedented success in the theme of payment for death, or of payment for death in war, as the history of mercenaries changing the tides of battle clearly shows.

Mercenaries

Mercenaries have been participating in violence for likely the same amount of time as assassins, though generally on a more public and destructive scale, without much in the ways of stealth and treachery. Before countries began fielding standing armies, mercenaries were the primary method of large-scale combat. Being a mercenary was a regular job. Groups of mercenaries would sell their services to the highest bidder, always aware that nations would continue to find reasons to use their services. When problems became scarce, and nobody wanted to pay them, they would create problems of their own, extorting their hosts in the process. Throughout most of history up to the signing of the Peace of Westphalia treaties in 1648, which were the origin of the modern-day nation-state with recognized national borders, mercenaries were the primary forces used for war.¹¹ Mercenaries grew primarily to fill a skill void in the area of combat expertise. Before the creation of standing armies, the duties of war were rotated among individuals too often to retain the necessary experience and skill to achieve efficiency, which led to the rise of experienced warriors willing to sell their services to the highest bidder.

Eventually, mercenaries became a global industry, attracting violent, greedy people with the sole motive of money as their driving purpose. The only logical outcome of this scenario is chaos and tyranny, if for no other reason than that the existence of a large permanent mercenary population creates a strong incentive for constant war. In peace, mercenaries posed a threat to the general population, often resorting to extortion for protection to continue their livelihood when their services were not required, as happened in France in the late 15th century following the end of the Hundred Years War.¹² Despite the drawbacks associated with mercenaries, the industry itself survived long after the Peace of Westphalia, and even into the modern world, as supplemental forces to a standing national army have often been seen as desirable for several reasons, from bolstering force size to match an enemy force to bending the rules of national militaries to provide plausible deniability.

Force size has been a constant issue in war, often leading to hiring mercenaries to supplement militaries. This method is not always successful, however, as Great Britain learned during the American Revolutionary War. Unable to maintain security throughout the British Empire around the world and quell the American uprising simultaneously with available military forces, Britain hired approximately 10,000 Native Americans and 30,000 German mercenaries to help fight the American Continental Army.¹³ The Revolutionary War highlights the fact that mercenaries are only as good as the money they are paid, illustrated by the fact that the American Congress instigated the distribution of “leaflets offering the Germans land and livestock” to switch sides.¹⁴ The nature of the Revolutionary war itself also highlights a more general flaw in the use of mercenaries, in that the Revolutionary war, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, had “no cause but malice against liberty.”¹⁵ This stance points out that the cause of a war, if not properly sold to the participants, can cause a severe undermining within the ranks of the combatants, in turn hurting morale, fostering dissent, and decreasing efficiency, which was experienced significantly on the side of the British. Ultimately, the British use of mercenaries failed to win the war; however, the resulting Constitutional debate was greatly informed by the use of paid actors in warfare, strengthening the Constitutional guidelines for military force regulation in America.

As America grew throughout the transition of the world from mercenary warfare to national militaries, mercenaries became less and less acceptable to the international community. Mercenaries became used primarily to provide plausible deniability to governments and avoid regulations, in much the same way assassins have been used to further objectives of leaders over time. The controversy over the use of mercenaries in warfare grew so extensively that the United Nations decided to institute a new international law, in the form of a treaty titled the International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, signed in 1989.¹⁶ The treaty is interesting in that while signed by many countries, neither the United States nor Russia, the two primary superpowers at the time, has signed onto it since its creation, and the language used in the treaty leaves significant room for interpretation, specifically with regards to the treaty’s definition of a mercenary.¹⁷ These flaws have led to the continuation of non-military payment for violence, both with the continued use of bounties and bounty hunters and in the case of carefully labeled paramilitary forces that don’t fit within the legal parameters of the treaty definition for mercenaries.

Bounty Systems

In the late 19th century, after the American civil war, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, a precursor to the American FBI, established what amounts to the first criminal database in history, with mug shots, wanted posters, and descriptions of criminals and their crimes, all circulating in newspapers across the country and filed with the agency until the death of the criminal.¹⁸ Bounties have also been used extensively since the signing of the 1989 UN treaty as an incentive for individual citizens to assist law enforcement and governments in capturing or killing wanted persons, from criminals to terrorists. The most widely known examples of this in America are the FBI’s most-wanted lists, which are updated regularly, and put price tags on fugitives at large in the United States and around the world. Among the lists, the FBI provides a top ten list of fugitives and a top ten list of terrorists, with price tags ranging from thousands to millions of dollars in rewards for information leading to capture.¹⁹ While the FBI’s bounty lists today are generally for capture, not killing, some infamous outlaws in American history, like Frank and Jesse James, were the targets of wanted posters that promised a reward whether the criminals were brought in dead or alive.²⁰

The American justice system outlined in the U.S. Constitution eventually eliminated the use of dead or alive wanted posters, as they are illegal under the Constitutional Bill of Rights that provides for a fair trial before sentencing. Still, the bounty system remained intact for capture. During the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, another bounty-style system was used to target the most important members of the Iraqi forces and government, in the form of a deck of cards. The Defense Intelligence Agency, after years of research, developed a target/value identification system based on the standard value system assigned to a deck of cards in poker games to assist ground forces in identifying targets of value in Iraq.²¹ Saddam Hussein occupied the highest value position, the ace of spades, with consecutively lower-valued individuals identified in succession throughout the deck, aces first, then kings down to twos. While money was not directly associated with this example, prestige was undoubtedly a motivating factor for ground forces capturing high-value targets, and the system set the stage for non-government paramilitary forces to participate directly in ongoing military operations during an active war.

Private Military Companies (PMC)

Blackwater quickly emerged as one of the first major controversies of the 21st century, as a PMC working for the United States government in active military combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, without oversight from Congress equal to that of U.S. military forces, but with missions encompassing the same areas as the American military.²² Acting independently of the military, the organization participated in defensive and offensive combat operations to help accomplish military missions of the United States. Without military oversight, and acting directly on behalf of the Executive Branch of government, PMCs like Blackwater are nearly identical to historical mercenary organizations working for pay in combat environments. The United States is not the only country with PMCs. The practice has become widespread since the signing of the 1989 UN treaty banning mercenaries and includes the Russian PMC, The Wagner Group, which is essentially the Russian version of Blackwater. The authoritarian government of Russia, however, has resulted in a much more dangerous version of a PMC than Blackwater and has included domestic operations within Russia as well as foreign operations.²³

Iranian governing practices have given rise to a very different type of PMC. Iran’s military, paramilitary, and intelligence organs are all essentially PMCs in the way that they operate due to the nature of Iran’s government structure, and they are all directly controlled by the Supreme Leader. The primary arms of these enterprises are the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These organizations work together in directing and supporting the PMC-like Quds Force operatives around the world in support of collection efforts, intelligence operations, paramilitary operations, assassinations, and terrorist activities. While the Quds Force advances Iranian efforts to export revolution around the world, their local PMC-like organization, known as the Basij, works to subvert independence within Iran, assisting in tyrannical oppression of free speech and liberty within the country and violently suppressing any attempt to cause disturbances against the Supreme Leader. Iran targets enemies abroad using a decentralized system of third-party actions and efforts, combining the principles of the bounty system and PMC architecture instead of engaging directly in combat efforts. In 2006, for example, when the Islamic State terror organization was still called Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQ-I),²⁴ the MOIS provided “financial, material, technological, and other support” to their leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, directly supporting the terrorist’s war against U.S. personnel in Iraq.²⁵

The contrast between Blackwater and the Iranian Quds Force is extreme, but the core issue inherent in their existence is nearly identical. With the rise in popularity of PMCs around the world after their successful use by the United States in the War on Terror, the core issue of their existence needs attention from the world. The international community recognized that even though Blackwater was targeted for their deeds, their success in achieving mission goals was undeniable. China, Pakistan, Great Britain, Australia, India, and many other countries have worked to develop similar types of organizations in their countries to take advantage of the gray area of contractor combat operations. These organizations are primarily in the employ of the Executive Branch of government or its national equivalent. They are generally not under the structure of the national military for legal purposes or oversight. They are mercenaries, being used in the modern-day to bolster force size that otherwise cannot grow and to skirt existing national and international laws with regards to combat operations and security. While the attention drawn to Blackwater caused them to change their name to Academi, the core issue of the existence of PMCs, in general, has not been significantly addressed in the international community.

Conclusion

The practice of paying people to kill has been around for a long time and is likely to stay, absent total world peace. The question that comes to mind isn’t whether or not this process exists, or even how to eliminate it, but rather, what the best way forward is for the United States and the international community, knowing that this process is an inherent part of world politics and international relationships. Attention, publicization, and regulation are likely the most effective weapons against barbarity in warfare, as has been shown throughout history. Attention drawn to assassins led to a ban on the practice of assassination. Attention drawn to mercenaries led to a ban on mercenaries. Attention drawn to the American Constitutional justice system led to the elimination of dead or alive bounties. Attention drawn to PMCs led to a restructuring of the relationship between the United States government and third-party contractors and continues to shape the potential future of PMCs. When the people of the world pay attention, publicize rights and wrongs perpetrated by governments and leaders, and work to create effective regulations to ensure that human dignity and individual liberty are the primary goals of such regulations, freedom succeeds, and tyranny fails.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any U.S. government agency, including but not limited to the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, or the Marine Corps. Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of any U.S. government entity.

References

¹ William Crotty, “Presidential Assassinations,” Society 35, no. 2 (1998): 102-103.

² Kautilya, Arthashastra, Translated by R. Shamasastry, (Bangalore: Government Press, 1915), 461-474.

³ Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Translated by Lionel Giles, (London, UK: Luzac and Co., 1910), 34.

⁴ Central Intelligence Agency, “A Study of Assassination,” Central Intelligence Agency (1953), Accessed on July 2, 2020, https://archive.org/details/CIAAStudyOfAssassination1953/mode/2up.

⁵ Donald Yerxa, “July 1914: An Interview with Sean McMeekin,” Historically Speaking 14, no. 3 (2013): 12-16.

⁶ Elena Kosmach, “Serbs and Russians,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 43, no. 1 (2001): 109-114.

⁷ Ian Beckett, “Franz Ferdinand,” Historian no. 120 (2014): 18-22.

⁸ Geoffrey Wawro, Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire, (Boulder, CO, USA: Basic Books, 2014), 104-106.

⁹ Wawro, Mad Catastrophe, 106.

¹⁰ Martin Levinson, “Mapping the Causes of World War I to Avoid Armageddon Today,” Et Cetera 62, no. 2 (2005): 157-164.

¹¹ Matthew Underwood, “Jealousies of a Standing Army: The Use of Mercenaries in the American Revolution and its Implications for Congress’s Role in Regulating Private Military Firms,” Northwestern University Law Review 106, no. 1 (2012): 317-349.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Benjamin Franklin, The Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin, (Eau Claire: E.M. Hale & Company, nd), 253.

¹⁶ United Nations, “International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries,” United Nations (1989).

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Pinkerton, “Our History,” Pinkerton (2020), Accessed on July 6, 2020, www.Pinkerton.com/our-story/history.

¹⁹ FBI, “Most Wanted,” FBI (2020), Accessed on July 6, 2020, www.FBI.gov/wanted.

²⁰ Sophie Tanno, “$5,000 for Jesse James ‘Dead or Alive’ and $100,000 for Lincoln’s Three Killers: The Fascinating Wanted Posters for America’s Biggest 19th Century Criminals,” Daily Mail (2019), Accessed on July 8, 2020, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7280265/the-fascinating-wanted-posters-americas-biggest-19th-century-criminals.html.

²¹ Doug Sample, “The Faces Behind the Faces on the ‘Most Wanted’ Deck,” American Forces Press Service (2003), Accessed on July 6, 2020, archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=29017.

²² Underwood, “Jealousies of a Standing Army.”

²³ Kimberly Marten, “Russia’s Use of Semi-State Security Forces: The Case of the Wagner Group,” Post-Soviet Affairs 35, no. 3 (2019): 181-204.

²⁴ Kenneth Katzman, “Iraq: Politics, Governance, and Human Rights,” Current Politics and Economics of the Middle East 5, no. 4 (2014): 415-476.

²⁵ Library of Congress, “Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile,” Federal Research Division (2012), 37.

Paid to Kill: An Examination of the Evolution of Combatants for Hire was originally published on Global Security Review.

A Finite Strategy

In game theory, there are finite and infinite games. In a finite game, the objective of the game is to win, thereby ending the game. In the infinite game, the goal is the perpetuation of the game. Since 9/11, the U.S. has implemented a finite approach to fighting terrorism. The “War on Terrorism (WoT)” archetype highlights this finite approach.

Three premises underpinned the WoT archetype: the theoretical idea that terrorism can be completely defeated, the militarization of the response to terrorism, and by extension, the overzealousness to targeted killing, especially of leaders.

As a rhetorical tactic, framing terrorism as a defeatable concept certainly helped galvanize the U.S. population and international community in the wake of the attacks. But as a theoretical approach, it is at best ill-conceived and, at worst futile. First, there is little sense to the idea of defeating terrorism completely. As scholars Arie W. Kruglanski and Shira Fishman have argued, terrorism is merely a tool.¹ As a tool, terrorism has and is used by most non-state actors²across the political violence spectrum to achieve their goals.