In February 2026, more than 200 personnel from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States gathered on Australia’s east coast for the latest AUKUS Maritime Big Play exercise, where operators tested roughly thirty next-generation autonomous capabilities, including a live strike by a one-way attack munition. Earlier iterations of the series had already demonstrated something more consequential than any single platform: the ability of the three navies to control autonomous assets belonging to one another. Allied autonomy has moved out of the laboratory and into operational formations, and it is moving faster than the alliance frameworks that govern who may authorize a machine to act. 

The Seam in the Umbrella 

Extended deterrence has always rested on shared expectations about decision-making. The United States and Japan formalized this in December 2024, when the two governments issued their first Guidelines for Extended Deterrence, reinforcing consultation and communication procedures for the gravest decisions the alliance could face. Consultation procedures of this kind assume that the decisions in question move at human speed, through ministers and commanders who can meet, confer, and align. Autonomous systems introduce a class of alliance decisions that will not wait for a meeting. 

Every ally that fields autonomous systems encodes national rules about when a machine may engage, when it must ask a human, and when it must stop. The United States codifies its approach in Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, which sets rigorous verification, testing, and senior-review requirements designed to minimize unintended engagements. Allies maintain their own rules, shaped by their own laws, doctrines, and political constraints. 

Those national rule sets do not automatically align, and in a combined force the differences become seams. A coalition formation may contain systems that would engage a given contact under one national authority profile and hold fire under another. Adversaries study seams. 

The probing will not be hypothetical. China has spent more than a decade practicing pressure beneath the threshold of armed conflict, from maritime militia swarms to coercive air intercepts, precisely because ambiguity about an alliance response is exploitable. Russia has run the same playbook against NATO members in the air and undersea domains. A coalition whose autonomous systems answer that pressure under visibly different national rules hands its adversaries a map of where the alliance hesitates. 

The consequences for deterrence are direct. The most immediate risk is entrapment at machine speed: when an allied autonomous system engages inside the American security umbrella, the United States can inherit an escalation decision it never made, at a pace that forecloses the consultation the alliance promised itself. Mismatched authority thresholds also invite probing, because an adversary can calibrate provocations that one member’s systems would answer and another member’s system would not, and can harvest knowledge of alliance rules from the pattern of responses. 

Assurance suffers as well. An alliance that cannot state clearly how its machines hold fire loses precision in its guarantees at exactly the moment allies under threat are asking for more precision, not less. Credibility in the machine age includes the credibility of restraint. 

Authority Interoperability 

The building blocks for closing the seam already exist. Directive 3000.09 gives the United States a mature national template. The Five Eyes cybersecurity agencies showed in May 2026 that allied governments can speak with one voice on machine autonomy when they jointly published guidance on agentic artificial intelligence, urging organizations to prioritize “resilience, reversibility and risk containment over efficiency gains.” The Maritime Big Play program has likewise turned toward shared command-and-control software and a common autonomous baseline across the three AUKUS navies. Each of these efforts is necessary. What none of them yet delivers is the specific artifact extended deterrence requires: a legible statement of each ally’s engagement authority rules that coalition systems and coalition commanders can rely on before they operate together. 

Allied autonomy needs authority interoperability, built as deliberately as data interoperability was built over the past three decades. Three practical steps would supplement the work already underway. Allies could publish national authority profiles, meaning standardized declarations of the engagement tiers their systems may exercise, the conditions that trigger human review, and the recall mechanisms that stop a pending action. Combined forces could adopt shared reversion standards, so that any coalition system can be halted through a common, tested procedure regardless of which flag it flies. Extended deterrence consultations, on the model the United States and Japan set in 2024, could add an autonomy annex that establishes in advance how allied autonomous engagements inside the umbrella will be communicated, reviewed, and, where necessary, walked back. 

These steps ask allies to formalize what alliance staffs already negotiate informally under time pressure. Deterrence theory has long held that credibility rests on capability and will. Combined autonomy adds a third term: legibility. An alliance whose machines carry legible, compatible, and reversible authority is an alliance an adversary cannot divide at the seam. Extended deterrence in the machine age will belong to the alliances that make their authority architecture as interoperable as their ammunition. 

Burak Oktenli is an independent researcher in Washington, DC, conducting research on human-machine authority architecture and the governance of autonomous military systems. He is the author of the ten-volume Authority and Architecture series on the governance of autonomous decision authority, and his analysis has appeared in RealClearDefense, Task and Purpose, and The Space Review. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

Allied Autonomy Is Creating a New Seam in Extended Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

Artificial intelligence is quietly redrawing the front lines of national security, and the United States’ Defense Industrial Base (DIB) now sits in the crosshairs of a new style of conflict. What once looked like routine cyber incidents now appears as a persistent campaign that fuses digital intrusion, supply chain manipulation, and targeted information operations into a single pressure system aimed at the factories, laboratories, and logistics networks that keep American forces armed and ready.

When most Americans imagine national defense, they focus on the uniformed force and the platforms that dominate headlines. Behind that visible edge of power stands a sprawling, largely private ecosystem of designers, manufacturers, software firms, logistics providers, depots, and research institutions that convert national intent into fielded combat capability. Federal regulation describes this DIB as the combined government and private sector industrial complex that can research, develop, produce, and sustain weapon systems and their components at the scale required for military operations.

That chain is far more diverse than the marquee names on major defense contracts. It includes niche machine shops, regional logistics firms, university laboratories, software providers, and government facilities that share technical data and workflow information through a constant flow of digital exchanges. Design files, bills of material, maintenance records, and operational telemetry form the nervous system of this industrial organism. When the system is healthy, the nation can surge production and sustain readiness under stress. When it is strained, deterrence becomes much harder to demonstrate in a crisis.

This industrial nervous system is absorbing AI at high speed, often with limited guardrails. Across the DIB, machine learning supports predictive maintenance, defect detection, demand forecasting, scheduling, and supply chain visibility. Corporate leadership often has only a surface-level understanding of how thinking machines can erode corporate identity, trust, and reputation quietly, yet catastrophically.

For the strategist, this adaptation expands the terrain adversaries can probe. Industry surveys in the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 report show that executives see AI as the primary driver of change in cybersecurity and regard AI-related vulnerabilities as the fastest-growing category of cyber risk. Organizations recognize that their attack surface is expanding as AI tools move into sensitive workflows, yet governance practices and security controls often lag deployment.

Hybrid campaigns against the DIB rarely announce themselves through spectacular outages. Security officials describe a patient pattern that begins with access and aims for endurance rather than immediate disruption. Once inside a network or supplier ecosystem, adversary teams map production rhythms, supplier dependencies, identity systems, and critical decision points where even modest delays can ripple across schedules and inventories. AI has become a force multiplier

for this reconnaissance, mining engineering files, and communications at machine speed and surfacing patterns that would take human analysts far longer to identify.

The contest is unfolding below the threshold of open conflict. Strategic competitors apply pressure through cyber intrusion, intellectual property theft, data manipulation, counterfeit insertion, and narrative operations designed to erode confidence in the U.S. capacity to arm itself and its allies. Hybrid pressure often manifests as subtle slowdown, rising cost, and creeping doubt rather than overt sabotage.

The stakes for deterrence are significant. Modern deterrence depends not only on visible platforms and war plans but also on an adversary’s belief that the United States can sustain forces and generate combat power at speed. If competitors conclude that AI-enabled systems in the DIB are brittle or easily manipulated, the credibility of deterrence weakens. The 2026 National Defense Strategy emphasizes strengthening the industrial base as a pillar of national power, tying cyber resilience directly to the ability to deter and wage war.

Pentagon planners increasingly describe cyber activity against the DIB as a persistent campaign environment. Adversaries can pursue national security effects through intrusions into private networks and business processes that support critical programs.

The technical attack surface is broad because the DIB operates as a tightly coupled system. Engineering teams collaborate across companies, moving design data through shared tools and platforms. Components flow through multiple tiers of suppliers before the final assembly. A single compromised vendor can offer adversaries access to multiple programs. Hybrid campaigns exploit these seams.

The effect of these operations extends beyond physical outcomes. Manipulated or stolen data can become material for influence narratives that frame U.S. production as unreliable or compromised. Production delays caused by cyber incidents can be amplified to sow doubt among allies about American capacity.

Adversary teams also benefit from repetition. They have treated the DIB as a learning environment, refining tradecraft through continuous operations. Hybrid coercion in this context is deliberate and calibrated, remaining below the threshold that would trigger a national response while still generating uncertainty and doubt.

Emerging evidence suggests that agentic AI systems are beginning to automate portions of this intrusion lifecycle. Automated chains reduce the cost of probing many suppliers and narrow the window for defenders to respond. For smaller firms with limited security resources, the pressure can quickly become unmanageable.

Security experts argue that defending against such campaigns will require disciplined governance and architecture. Pre-deployment AI security assessment and continuous validation must become standard practice, covering model selection, data provenance, access control, logging, and periodic reevaluation.

Architectural choices will also play a critical role. Zero trust principles and micro segmentation can reduce the impact of intrusions by limiting movement across networks. For DIB operators, this means treating segmentation and strong identity controls as the default architecture.

The industrial context around these cyber efforts is already volatile. The aerospace and defense sector is managing supply chain disruptions and resource constraints while trying to scale production. This environment amplifies the effectiveness of cyber sabotage and influence operations because attacks land in systems that are already stressed.

The strategic logic behind adversary focus on the DIB is clear. By degrading confidence and throughput, competitors can undercut deterrence without open conflict. When intrusions are contained and production continues under pressure, the calculus of hybrid aggression shifts.

Hybrid warfare against the DIB aims to bend trust in the systems that generate combat power. If those trust systems are distorted through advanced technologies and coordinated information operations, the result is slower decisions, higher costs, delayed output, and a quieter form of coercion.

Mr. Greg Sharpe is a Fellow and the director of Communications and Marketing for the National Institute for Deterrence Studies and the Managing Design Editor for the Global Security Review. Greg has over 35 years of military, federal civilian, and defense contractor experience in the fields of database development, digital marketing & analytics, technology use case exploration and assessment, and as a USAF doctrine outreach and engagement analyst. The views of the author are his own.

Quiet Warfare: Bending Data and Perceptions in the Defense Industrial Base was originally published on Global Security Review.

Strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific is increasingly taking place in the “gray zone”—the space between routine state competition and open warfare. Rather than relying solely on conventional military confrontation, states are employing hybrid tactics such as economic coercion, cyber operations, disinformation campaigns, and limited military provocations to gradually shift the strategic balance in their favour.

China, North Korea, and Russia are among the most active practitioners of gray zone strategy. Their activities are deliberately calibrated to remain below the threshold that would trigger a large-scale military response, allowing a to challenge the rules-based order while avoiding outright conflict.

For policymakers and military planners, this presents a difficult dilemma. Traditional deterrence models were designed to prevent major wars, not persistent low-level coercion. As gray-zone competition intensifies across the Indo-Pacific, regional states must consider how to deter and respond to these activities without inadvertently escalating the situation.

Understanding the actors involved, and the tactics they employ, is therefore essential. The following sections outline how China, North Korea, and Russia conduct gray zone campaigns across the Indo-Pacific and how these activities collectively challenge regional stability.

China: Gradual Strategic Expansion

China arguably conducts the most sophisticated and comprehensive gray zone campaign in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing’s approach combines military presence, maritime coercion, economic pressure, and legal strategies to expand its influence while avoiding direct confrontation.

In the maritime domain, China frequently uses coast guard vessels and maritime militia to harass foreign ships in disputed waters, particularly in the South China Sea. These forces operate in ways that blur the line between civilian and military activity, allowing Beijing to apply pressure while maintaining plausible deniability.

China also conducts frequent aircraft incursions and large-scale military exercises near Taiwan, while maintaining persistent patrols around the Senkaku Islands. These operations serve multiple purposes: demonstrating military capability, testing regional responses, and normalizing Chinese presence in contested areas. Moreover, Beijing employs cyber espionage, economic coercion, and diplomatic strategies sometimes described as “lawfare,” often passing domestic laws that extend jurisdiction into contested spaces to codify expansive claims, selectively invoking international law, and using legal ambiguity to its advantage. These efforts allow China to reinforce its territorial claims and political narratives while staying below the threshold of open conflict. Over time, such actions gradually reshape the strategic environment in China’s favour.

North Korea: Coercion Through Provocation

North Korea relies heavily on gray zone tactics to pressure its opponents while avoiding the disastrous consequences of full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula.

Cyber operations are one of Pyongyang’s most important tools. Groups such as the Lazarus Group have conducted large-scale hacking campaigns targeting financial institutions, governments, and cryptocurrency exchanges. These cyber activities not only generate revenue for the regime but also demonstrate North Korea’s growing technological capabilities.

In addition to cyber operations, North Korea regularly conducts missile launches, artillery exchanges near disputed maritime boundaries, and military demonstrations aimed at raising tensions in the region. These examples are limited military provocations designed to signal resolve without triggering open conflict.

North Korea also operates extensive sanctions-evasion networks. Through covert maritime trade, smuggling operations, and cyber-enabled financial crime, the regime generates revenue while circumventing international restrictions. These activities allow Pyongyang to sustain its economy and military programs despite heavy sanctions pressure.

Taken together, North Korea’s gray zone strategy enables the regime to coerce its adversaries, generate financial resources, and maintain strategic relevance without crossing the threshold of major war.

Russia: Information Warfare and Strategic Signalling

Although Russia’s primary strategic focus lies in Europe, Moscow also conducts gray zone activities in the Indo-Pacific that challenge regional stability and Western influence.

Cyber operations remain a central element of Russia’s approach. Moscow-linked actors have been associated with intrusions targeting government systems and critical infrastructure in countries such as Japan and Australia. These operations are often accompanied by online disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining public trust and influencing domestic political debates.

Russia also engages in strategic military signalling across the region. Long-range bomber patrols and naval deployments near areas such as the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea demonstrate Russia’s military reach and reinforce its presence in the Indo-Pacific. In some cases, these activities occur alongside Chinese forces, highlighting increasing coordination between Moscow and Beijing. Such cooperation amplifies the strategic message that Russia and China are capable of jointly contesting Western and allied presence in the region.

Russia also maintains sanctions-evasion networks that facilitate illicit maritime trade, including ship-to-ship transfers involving North Korea. These networks allow Moscow to sustain economic ties while bypassing international restrictions.

The Strategic Challenge of Gray Zone Competition

Gray-zone campaigns pose a growing strategic challenge for Indo-Pacific states. Because these activities remain below the threshold of armed conflict, they are difficult to deter using traditional military tools. Yet over time, they can gradually erode regional stability and shift the balance of power. This raises an important question for policymakers: how should states respond to persistent gray zone coercion without escalating into major conflict?

One approach is to use limited, proportionate conventional responses to push back against gray-zone activities. However, such responses must be carefully calibrated to prevent unintended escalation. This is where broader strategic deterrence may play an important role.

A stronger Indo-Pacific security framework—potentially including deeper military integration among regional allies and partners—could provide the stability needed to manage escalation risks. In particular, a future Indo-Pacific nuclear security architecture could serve as a strategic backstop. As much as nuclear deterrence underpins NATO’s conventional defence posture in Europe, a similar framework in the Indo-Pacific could help ensure that responses to gray zone provocations remain limited rather than spiralling into major war.

Preparing for Persistent Competition

Gray zone competition is likely to remain a defining feature of Indo-Pacific security in the coming decades. China, North Korea, and Russia are already using these tactics to challenge the existing strategic order while avoiding direct confrontation.

For regional states, the challenge is not simply responding to individual incidents. It is developing a deterrence framework capable of managing persistent, low-level coercion across multiple domains. Without such a framework, gray zone activities will continue to stress the limits of allied resolve and gradually reshape the strategic landscape. Strengthening regional cooperation, improving resilience against hybrid tactics, and reinforcing strategic deterrence will therefore be essential steps in preserving stability in the Indo-Pacific.

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 are the author’s own.

Beyond a Pacific Defense Pact 2: Gray zone campaigns and activities conducted by China, North Korea, and Russia in the Indo-Pacific 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.

This pattern has direct relevance for the Indo-Pacific region. Deterrence depends not only on forward-deployed forces and advanced capabilities, but also on the sustained ability of allied military institutions to function under pressure. Long-duration crises test personnel systems, logistics governance, and civil–military coordination in ways short conflicts do not. Joint operations across multiple states rely on interoperability, shared intelligence, and coordinated command structures that may degrade under stress. Failure of these institutional mechanisms can be as decisive as battlefield defeat. The Indo-Pacific presents additional challenges, including vast maritime distances, diverse political systems among allies, and critical chokepoints such as the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, which amplify the consequences of institutional stress.

Logistics is often the first system to degrade in prolonged conflict. Early wartime adaptation can mask structural weaknesses, but logistics networks become brittle over time. Sustained disruption, infrastructure damage, and competing civilian demands reduce flexibility. Recent high intensity conflicts demonstrate that logistics effectiveness often declines due to cumulative friction across transportation, maintenance, and energy supply chains. These vulnerabilities are particularly pronounced in maritime and air domains, where long supply lines and port dependencies create operational risks. For Indo-Pacific states, heavy reliance on maritime transport and civilian infrastructure further intensifies these challenges. Deterrence credibility therefore depends not only on stockpiles, but on whether logistics governance can function after months of sustained pressure.

Energy infrastructure resilience is intricately linked to logistics sustainability. Sustained strikes on energy systems rarely halt operations immediately, but they gradually erode institutional capacity. Power instability affects command systems, maintenance cycles, training pipelines, and civilian support networks. Over time, these disruptions degrade operational tempo and decision-making quality. Many Indo-Pacific states rely on centralized power generation, imported fuel, and dual-use infrastructure, increasing their vulnerability to prolonged disruption. Such stress would not only affect military units, but also civilian resilience, intensifying friction between defense requirements and societal tolerance. Extended deterrence relies heavily on political cohesion, making energy resilience a strategic factor. States with diversified energy networks, redundant supply routes, and hardened civilian-military interfaces are better positioned to sustain military effectiveness.

Personnel systems represent another critical late-phase vulnerability. High-intensity conflict places sustained demands on trained personnel that are difficult to replace. Initial mobilization often creates an illusion of depth, but over time training quality declines, leadership fatigue accumulates, and institutional knowledge erodes. These effects are gradual and frequently overlooked until they become operationally decisive. Demographic constraints further complicate personnel sustainability across Indo-Pacific allies, many of which face aging populations and limited mobilization pools. Prolonged conflict would force trade-offs between force quality and quantity. Effective deterrence planning requires realistic long-duration personnel strategies, including force rotation, cross-training, and preplanned personnel pipelines that preserve institutional knowledge under operational stress.

Civil–military coordination also deteriorates during prolonged crises. Early conflict phases typically produce strong political consensus and public support. Over time, however, economic strain, infrastructure damage, and social fatigue create competing priorities. Decision-making processes slow, risk tolerances shift, and coordination mechanisms weaken. These dynamics have direct deterrence implications because adversaries observe not only military deployments, but also institutional coherence. Prolonged stress that reveals political fragmentation or administrative paralysis can undermine deterrence credibility. In the Indo-Pacific, where extended deterrence relies on alliance unity and sustained commitment, maintaining institutional cohesion is strategically essential. Regular joint exercises, wargaming, and civil–military education can strengthen resilience before conflict emerges.

Technological developments and emerging threats intensify these challenges. Hypersonic weapons, autonomous systems, cyber operations, and space-based surveillance increase operational tempo and reliance on interconnected networks. Disruption in one domain can cascade across others, magnifying institutional stress. Attacks targeting space-based command-and-control or satellite navigation systems would degrade precision strike capabilities, logistics coordination, maritime awareness, and joint operational planning. Although technological superiority remains important, it cannot compensate for institutional degradation during prolonged conflict. Resilience in digital infrastructure, cybersecurity frameworks, and redundancy planning therefore represents a decisive late-phase determinant of military effectiveness.

Space and cyber capabilities are especially significant for extended deterrence. American space-based sensors, missile warning networks, and communications satellites provide critical detection and coordination advantages. However, these systems rely on both technical redundancy and organizational resilience. Sustained disruption would test alliance coordination and operational cohesion as much as physical hardware. Prolonged conflict would reveal whether allied institutions can maintain effectiveness under persistent technological and informational pressure. Cyber operations are particularly concerning because they can gradually degrade institutional functionality without provoking overt confrontation, underscoring the importance of integrated defensive architectures and rapid recovery mechanisms.

Nuclear deterrence is similarly shaped by institutional endurance. Adversaries observing strain in logistics, personnel systems, or civil–military coordination may question the credibility of extended deterrence commitments. Modernization programs that enhance survivable nuclear forces and resilient command-and-control systems remain essential, but their effectiveness depends on institutional capacity to operate under sustained stress. Endurance therefore emerges as a strategic variable equal in importance to platforms and weapons systems. Deterrence credibility is continuously tested by the ability of institutions to project capability during protracted crises.

For deterrence planners, the central lesson is clear: prolonged conflict transforms military effectiveness from a function of platforms into a function of institutions. States that plan for short, decisive engagements risk strategic failure if conflicts extend beyond expectations. The United States and its Indo-Pacific allies must rebalance deterrence planning by emphasizing late-phase resilience. Priorities should include logistics governance under disruption, energy system adaptability, personnel sustainability, durable civil–military coordination, and protection against emerging technological threats. These factors determine whether deterrence remains credible over time rather than only at crisis onset.

Prolonged conflict is not an anomaly but a plausible future condition. Strategies that overlook institutional endurance risk failure not at the outset of war, but after sustained operational pressure erodes recovery capacity and strategic credibility. Integrating late-phase considerations into readiness assessments, modernization programs, and alliance coordination is therefore essential. Ultimately, the credibility of extended deterrence rests less on platforms alone and more on the ability of military and political institutions to withstand the cumulative stress of prolonged conflict.

Andrey Koval is a defense planner working on issues of military effectiveness and long-duration conflict. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Late-Phase Failure and the Erosion of Military Effectiveness in Prolonged Conflict was originally published on Global Security Review.

Russia’s January 2026 use of a hypersonic Oreshnik missile was not primarily about destroying a target. It was a strategic message delivered through speed and proximity rather than words. Western reporting confirms the strike occurred near Ukraine’s western border during a broader missile and drone attack and was widely interpreted as a deliberate signal toward NATO rather than a battlefield necessity.

This is how the conversation begins. Russia speaks first, not with a declaration, but with a capability demonstration. Hypersonic systems like Oreshnik reportedly exceed Mach 10, compressing detection and decision timelines and complicating interception by existing missile defense architectures. The message is implicit. If this can reach here, it can reach farther. Geography does the rest of the work.

From a battlefield perspective, the strike changed little. Ukraine has endured far heavier damage from conventional missile campaigns. Infrastructure effects were limited relative to scale. That is precisely why the strike matters. Hypersonic weapons derive much of their value not from explosive yield but from psychological and strategic effects that shape decision-making under uncertainty.

Hypersonic systems sit in an uneasy space between conventional and nuclear deterrence. Their speed and maneuverability reduce warning time, while their dual-use potential introduces ambiguity about intent and escalation thresholds. This ambiguity is destabilizing by design. It forces worst-case assumptions and heightens coercive leverage without crossing overt nuclear red lines.

The timing of the strike matters. It occurred amid active European debates about long-term security guarantees for Ukraine. Russia has consistently opposed deeper Western involvement, and analysts note that demonstrations of advanced strike capabilities often coincide with diplomatic inflection points to influence allied decision-making. Poland was not targeted, yet proximity alone conveyed risk. That was sufficient.

This brings the conversation directly to deterrence and national strategy. The most recent United States National Defense Strategy identifies Russia as an acute threat and emphasizes integrated deterrence across domains, allies, and instruments of national power. The document explicitly recognizes the challenge posed by advanced missile threats and highlights the need for resilient command and control, integrated air and missile defense, and close coordination with allies.

However, the Oreshnik strike exposes a gap between strategic acknowledgment and operational specificity. The National Defense Strategy speaks clearly about the importance of integrated deterrence, yet it remains largely high-level in addressing how compressed decision timelines created by hypersonic weapons affect escalation management in Europe. While the strategy calls for investments in missile defense and sensing, it does not fully grapple with the psychological and political effects of hypersonic ambiguity on alliance cohesion crises.

Deterrence by denial becomes harder to sustain when allies know that some threats may penetrate defenses regardless of investment. Hypersonic systems challenge assumptions that reassurance can rest on interception alone. NATO and U.S. strategies increasingly emphasize deterrence by punishment and resilience, yet the National Defense Strategy stops short of articulating how allies should respond politically and militarily when warning time collapses, and attribution is immediate, but intent remains unclear.

This does not mean the strategy is wrong. It means it is incomplete. Integrated deterrence remains the correct framework, but hypersonic weapons demand greater emphasis on crisis decision-making, distributed command structures, and alliance-level exercises that assume ambiguity rather than clarity. Analysts have long warned that hypersonic systems stress deterrence not by making war more likely, but by increasing the risk of miscalculation during moments of political tension.

Russia’s hypersonic signal near NATO’s border, therefore, becomes a practical test of whether strategic documents translate into a credible posture. The National Defense Strategy acknowledges the problem. The question is whether implementation moves fast enough to match the physics involved. Deterrence must function even when seconds replace minutes, and ambiguity replaces certainty.

The Oreshnik launch did not redraw Europe’s security map overnight. It changed the tone of the room. It reminded policymakers that deterrence is not static, and that technology can erode comfortable assumptions faster than doctrine adapts. Hypersonic weapons are not the end of deterrence. They are a stress test of whether national strategies and alliances can remain credible when clarity disappears.

When the screens go dark in that briefing room, the real discussion begins. Not about panic or retaliation, but about adaptation. Deterrence endures not because threats are fast, but because responses remain coherent under pressure. Russia spoke in velocity. The enduring question is whether strategy, alliance resolve, and execution can keep pace.

Brandon Toliver is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed are the author’s own. 

The Conversation Europe Never Wanted: Hypersonic Tensions and U.S. Defense Strategy was originally published on Global Security Review.

That gap undermines American extended deterrence because Washington cannot reassure allies or deter aggressors without accounting for South Asia’s threat calculus. AI arms developments in this region stem from colonial legacies and mistrust of great power intentions, creating a volatile strategic environment.

India’s Governance Innovation in Defense AI

India’s governance model integrates civilian oversight with defense research and ensures ethical deployment of AI. The Responsible AI Certification Pilot evaluated algorithms for explainability before clearance. Its National Strategy for AI mandates ethical review boards for dual-use systems. Developers must document bias-mitigation measures and escalation pathways. Embedding accountability at design phase stabilizes deterrence signals by reducing inadvertent algorithmic behaviors.

The Evaluating Trustworthy AI (ETAI) Framework advances defense AI governance. It enforces five principles: reliability, security, transparency, fairness, privacy, and sets rigorous criteria for system assessment. Chief of Defense, Staff General Anil Chauhan, stressed resilience against adversarial attacks, highlighting the challenge of balancing effectiveness and safety. By mandating continuous validation against evolving threat scenarios, ETAI prevents mission creep and maintains operational integrity under stress.

India’s dual use by design philosophy embeds safeguards within prototypes from inception. This contrasts with reactive models that regulate AI after deployment. Civilian launch-authorization channels separate political intent from technical execution, ensuring decisions remain under human control and reinforcing credibility in crisis moments. Regular red-team exercises involving independent experts further validate system robustness and reduce risks of false positives in autonomous targeting.

Strengthening Extended Deterrence through Cooperation

US-India collaboration on AI verification can reinforce extended deterrence by aligning technical standards and testing protocols. The iCET fact sheet outlines secure information sharing and joint safety trials. Launched in January 2023, iCET has already enabled co-production of jet engines and transfer of advanced drone technologies. Building on this foundation, specialized working groups could develop common benchmarks for adversarial-resistance testing and automated anomaly detection.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies report recommends a trilateral verification cell blending American evaluation tools with India’s ethical reviews. Joint trials of autonomous air-defense algorithms would demonstrate interoperability and resolve. A shared “AI Red Flag” system would alert capitals to anomalous behaviors and reduce strategic surprise. Embedding cryptographically secure logging of decision path data ensures an immutable audit trail for post-event analysis and confidence building.

The INDUS-X initiative, launched during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2023 US visit, integrates responsible AI principles into defense innovation. By aligning standards, both countries ensure AI systems enhance strategic stability rather than undermine it. Expanding INDUS-X to include scenario-based wargaming with allied partners can stress-test ethical frameworks and calibrate thresholds for human intervention under duress. This model can extend under the Quad framework, pressuring authoritarian regimes to adopt transparency measures.

Institutionalizing Global AI Arms Control

A formal arms control dialogue should adopt India’s baseline standards for ethical AI governance. The UNIDIR report calls for universal bias audits and incident-reporting obligations to prevent unintended escalation. Carnegie scholars propose a tiered certification process under a new protocol for autonomous systems within the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, requiring peer review of algorithms before deployment. Embedding such certification in national export-control regimes would create global incentives for adherence.

The UN General Assembly has established an Independent AI Scientific Panel and a Global Dialogue on AI Governance to issue annual assessments on risks and norms. This mechanism can evaluate military AI applications and recommend confidence-building measures. Procedural transparency would coexist with confidentiality requirements, balancing security with mutual reassurance. Regular joint workshops on risk-assessment methodologies can diffuse best practices and diffuse mistrust among major powers.

Regional Applications and Future Prospects

India’s responsible AI framework must inspire regional adoption and confidence-building measures. Pakistan and China should engage transparency initiatives to prevent dangerous asymmetries in AI capabilities. Proposed measures include joint research on AI safety, shared performance databases, and collaborative development of detection algorithms.

Successful tests of India’s hypersonic ET-LDHCM system, capable of Mach 8 and a 1,500-kilometer range, underscore the urgency of governance frameworks before fully autonomous weapons deploy. The Quad’s model of Indo-Pacific cooperation provides a template for multilateral norms on responsible AI in defense. Extending these norms to confidence-building measures such as pre-deployment notifications and automated backchannels can reduce the risk of inadvertent escalation.

Looking ahead to the United Nations General Assembly meeting on AI governance in September 2024, American policymakers can leverage India’s experience. Joint verification exercises and an ethical audit regime will establish global norms for military AI. Integrating lessons from ETAI and iCET into the assembly’s resolutions can produce enforceable standards that bind both democratic and authoritarian states. This approach will reaffirm American extended deterrence and help prevent destabilizing AI-driven arms races worldwide.

By demonstrating that ethical AI development strengthens rather than weakens deterrence credibility, India’s model provides both technical solutions and normative frameworks for managing the military applications of artificial intelligence. Sustained international cooperation on these principles is pivotal for securing strategic stability in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Vaibhav Chhimpa is a researcher who previously worked with the Department of Science & Technology (DST), India. Views expressed are the Author’s own.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Arms Race in South Asia was originally published on Global Security Review.

Bottom line: The center of gravity in deterrence is shifting to space-enabled, long-range, rapidly replaceable kill webs, and our adversaries are acting as if they know it. NATO voices now openly frame space as a war-fighting domain, while Europe moves from point defense to deep strike, Washington debates force-design trades (B-52J vs. more B-21s), and Iran/Russia press for coercive advantage amid sanctions friction. The strategic task is to turn language and spending into tested, resilient, allied operational architectures, and fast.

Unifying Trends

1. Space goes operational, not “supporting.”
   NATO leaders’ tone shift (Germany, France, Spain, Canada) treats space as a domain for defense and offense (“shield and sword”), demanding common doctrine, delegated authorities, and tactically responsive launch (<96 hours) to restore/augment constellations under attack.
2. From point defense to deep strike.
   Denmark’s decision to field long-range precision fires (Tomahawk/JASSM-ER class and European options) reflects a continental realization: you can’t intercept your way out of massed salvos—you must hold launchers, C2, and magazines at risk.
3. U.S. force-design inflection.
   Cost/schedule breaches on B-52J upgrades collide with contested-airspace realities, strengthening arguments to expand and accelerate B-21. This is a survivability vs. standoff trade with industrial-base and budget consequences.
4. Great-Power coercion is coordinated.
   ISW’s readout on Moscow’s aims, Iran’s missile signaling and suspected tests, and Beijing’s pressure campaigns (incl. Taiwan wargaming counters) form a convergent pressure track seeking to outlast Western cohesion and exploit cost-asymmetry (cheap counter-space/EW vs. exquisite satellites).
5. Homeland defense as a system-of-systems problem.
   “Golden Dome” can work only if rigorous end-to-end (E2E) testing—across space sensors, comms, C2, effectors, cyber—starts now and leverages commercial testbeds/digital twins. Otherwise, the architecture risks beautiful fragility.
6. Forward posture debates return.
   Talk of re-entering Bagram underscores a broader theme: geography for deterrence matters again, but must be weighed against access, legitimacy, and escalation dynamics with the Taliban and China.

What This Means Operationally

• Speed is deterrence. Time to detect-decide-deliver (and to replace space capacity) is now a primary measure of merit.
• Proliferation beats pedigree. Multi-orbit, proliferated constellations with rapid reconstitution are more survivable than few exquisite assets.
• Kill webs over platforms. Advantage will come from tested integration of sensors, AI-enabled C2, and multi-domain effectors, not any single “silver bullet.”
• Allies are moving—synchronize them. Europe’s deep-strike pivot and NATO’s space posture create a window to standardize doctrine, data, and munitions.

Risks to Watch

• Doctrine lag in space. Without common allied space ROE/authorities, response times will miss the fight.
• Testing shortfalls. If E2E campaigns are under-funded or staged too late, integration debt will surface in crisis.
• Budget whiplash. Raiding legacy accounts for survivable capacity is necessary—but undisciplined shifts can hollow critical standoff magazines and training.
• Cost asymmetry. Adversaries’ cheap EW/dazzling/cyber vs. our pricey satellites remains a structural vulnerability.

Priority Actions (next 6–12 months)

1. Adopt an Allied Space Operations Doctrine 1.0
   Codify protect/defend, attribution thresholds, delegated authorities, and tactically responsive launch across NATO.
2. Stand up a Joint Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) pipeline
   Contract now for rideshare, hot-spare payloads, and 96-hour launch/checkout drills; exercise quarterly.
3. Golden Dome: lock an Integrated Master Test Plan
   Fund E2E test events that include on-orbit sensing + ground C2 + live/interoperable interceptors + cyber red-teaming. Mandate industry-in-the-loop from day one.
4. Rebalance the bomber portfolio toward survivability
   Protect B-21 ramp; scrutinize B-52J scope/schedule to preserve standoff munitions buys and mission-planning AI.
5. European deep-strike integration
   Fast-track common mission planning, targeting data standards, and logistics for JASSM-ER/Tomahawk/European LR strike across F-35 and surface fleets.
6. Harden the space kill web
   Deploy optical crosslinks, jam-resilient waveforms, PNT alternatives, and autonomous battle management aids to ride through EW/cyber.
7. Tighten economic levers against Russia/Iran
   Enforce oil price caps/leakage, expand sanctions on dual-use microelectronics, and close maritime re-flag loopholes that fund attritional strategies.
8. Wargame access/logistics for any Afghanistan posture
   If Bagram re-entry is pursued, pre-plan overflight, basing, sustainment, and escalation controls; build non-permissive extraction branches.

Concrete Measures of Effectiveness

• Time-to-Replace-On-Orbit (TTRO): target ≤ 96 hours from loss to restored coverage.
• Find-Fix-Finish latency: median time from first detection to effect in minutes, not hours.
• E2E test cadence: quarterly cross-domain integrated events; zero critical interoperability defects carried forward.
• Allied deep-strike coverage: % of NATO targets held at risk at >500 km with validated comms/targeting.
• Resilience index: % of space services with disaggregated backups (multi-orbit/multi-vendor).

Longer Perspective

Deterrence now hinges on resilient connections more than singular platforms: space that can fight and recover, kill webs that integrate fast, and alliances that can reach deep. If we test as we will fight, standardize with allies, and bias for speed and survivability, we deny adversaries the slow-motion coercion they seek—and keep escalation ladders short, clear, and in our control.

This Week in Deterrence (September 15-19, 2025) was originally published on Global Security Review.

Historically, states pursued nuclear weapons under the protective assumption that deterrence begins once a program reaches maturity; that is, when nuclear devices are assembled, tested, or deployed. To some extent all nine nuclear weapon states achieved that level of deterrent threshold during their proliferation stages. Iran had not achieved such maturity. Furthermore, when looking at the region historically the Israeli attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and the 2007 strike on Syria’s Al-Kibar site both hinted at a willingness on the Israelis’ part to act preemptively to stop regional proliferators.

But the scale and coordination of this most recent strike go further. It sends a global message that enrichment facilities themselves, when capable of being targeted and penetrated by American GBU-57 bombs, inherently means that once you are closing in on enrichment, your facilities are fair game. This will be the truest when referring to adversaries of the US and its alliance network. It remains to be seen what would take place if an ally of the US were to proliferate nuclear weapons in this modern era without its consent.

This shift has profound implications for the future of proliferation. Any adversarial state aspiring to build nuclear weapons will now face a new strategic prerequisite: it must first develop the defensive capability to withstand a preemptive strike before it can even hope to proliferate successfully. That means constructing extensive, deeply buried underground facilities, tunnel networks, and hardened bunkers. They must be capable of surviving the US military’s most sophisticated bunker-busting munitions. It also means investing in robust air defenses, redundancy, deception, and a level of operational secrecy that rivals the most advanced intelligence agencies in the world.

Not every state can afford this. Proliferation is already an expensive and politically risky endeavor. The need to develop advanced passive defenses only compounds those challenges. Most would-be proliferators simply will not have the financial or technical wherewithal to defend their nuclear infrastructure at such a level, especially in the early, vulnerable stages of enrichment.

Iran, of course, will likely try again. The Islamic Republic has proven resilient, adaptive, and committed to achieving strategic parity with its adversaries. Unless it develops an indigenous system of defenses that can shield its critical infrastructure from aerial bombardment, future attempts will likely meet the same fate as the current one. Even if Iran builds bunkers and tunnel systems deep enough to shield its centrifuges, it will still face challenges of concealment, resource constraints, and foreign intelligence penetration.

The broader lesson here is stark; the window of opportunity for slow, open, or vulnerable proliferation may be closing. In the post Iran–strike era, nuclear aspirants will have to prepare for war before they prepare for the bomb. The cost of entry into the nuclear club has just gone up, not only in material terms but in strategic risk. Any state hoping to proliferate must now assume it will be struck before it succeeds.

This may serve to slow the pace of proliferation, but it could also make it more dangerous. Proliferators who internalize the lessons of the Iran strike may respond with greater urgency, opacity, and desperation. They may forgo the traditional step-by-step approach in favor of crash programs hidden deep underground or even move toward asymmetric hedging strategies that involve acquiring key technologies without crossing visible red lines. In such an environment, the risk of miscalculation on all sides grows.

The strike on Iran may therefore reduce the number of proliferators in the long run. But for those that do try, the game has certainly changed. As Stephen Cimbala recently argued, the precedent set by the Midnight Hammer strike on Iran should not be viewed in isolation. It marks a return to kinetic counter-proliferation under conditions of rising global instability, where deterrence is increasingly challenged by uncertainty and misperception.

In parallel, Peter Huessy emphasizes that restoring deterrence requires more than just missile defense or military strikes; it demands clarity of will and credible commitment to prevent nuclear breakout by adversaries.

Together, their analyses suggest that the US-Israel strike was not just about denying Iran the bomb, but it was also about reestablishing the normative firebreak against nuclear proliferation. The broader message is unambiguous: in an era where deterrence is fraying, those who wish to proliferate must now calculate not only how to build a bomb, but also how to survive the storm that will precede it.

If Iran is the test case, the future of proliferation will be shaped as much by preemption as by prevention, and only those with the means to withstand a midnight hammer will have any chance at joining the nuclear club. From now on, the path to the bomb runs through the rubble of facilities like Natanz and Fordow, and only the most prepared will make it out the other side.

Aaron Holland is a PhD Student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. All views expressed are the author’s own.

How US and Israeli Attacks on Iran Will Reshape the Future of Nuclear Proliferation was originally published on Global Security Review.

The war was not won by overwhelming force—it was won by precision, persistence, and a new kind of visibility. This shift was not just tactical; it was existential. Drones lowered the cost of engagement and shattered the old logic of deterrence. Military planners who once relied on large arsenals and conventional firepower now face a battlefield defined by bandwidth, optics, and algorithms. Nagorno-Karabakh was not an anomaly; it was a preview of what is coming.

Drones Tilt the Balance of Power

Azerbaijan’s drone fleet, led by Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2s and Israeli loitering munitions, did more than support ground troops. These drones destroyed tanks, artillery, and air defense systems with surgical precision.

Drone footage flooded social media and state television, galvanizing public support and intimidating adversaries. The battlefield became a stage and drones the lead actors in a performance of technological supremacy.

This was not a remote skirmish; it was a full-spectrum demonstration of how drones can tilt the military balance. Azerbaijan used converted Soviet-era aircraft as bait to expose Armenian air defenses, then struck with precision-guided drones. Air dominance was no longer reserved for wealthy superpowers; it was achieved through strategy and innovation.

Deterrence No Longer Works the Way It Used To

Deterrence did not fail for lack of firepower; it failed because the rules changed faster than anyone could adapt. Armenia’s conventional forces, built on Cold War assumptions, could not withstand the precision and persistence of drone strikes. The belief that large-scale military assets could prevent escalation collapsed under the weight of smaller and smarter systems.

This was not just a tactical failure; it was a conceptual one. Drones lowered the threshold for engagement and allowed Azerbaijan to strike decisively without risking pilots or exposing vulnerable assets. Deterrence, once rooted in overwhelming retaliation, now faces a new reality: speed, precision, and deniability.

Hybrid Warfare Is the New Normal

The war was not fought only in the skies; it unfolded across screens, networks, and supply chains. Azerbaijan blended conventional ground operations with cyber tactics, information warfare, and economic pressure. This hybrid model reflects a broader shift in twenty-first century warfare, where victory depends as much on narrative as on firepower.

Azerbaijan’s goals were clear: reclaim a contested enclave and secure vital energy corridors. But its drone-led offensive carried a deeper message—technological capability is political will. The signal to adversaries was unmistakable: resistance will be met with precision, persistence, and total visibility.

Small States Can Now Challenge Big Powers

            For Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh represents cultural survival and historical identity. Its defense relied on asymmetrical tactics and guerrilla resilience. But against a technologically superior adversary, these methods faltered. Civilians and soldiers alike were left exposed, sheltering under skies that no longer offered cover.

This vulnerability is not unique to Armenia. Small states with access to drones can now challenge larger powers. Taiwan, for instance, is rapidly scaling up domestic drone production to counter China and support Western allies. Its “Drone National Team” initiative aims to produce 15,000 drones per month by 2028, positioning the island as a global hub for secure, AI-enabled drones.

Deterrence Must Be Reimagined

Nagorno-Karabakh may be the first war won by drones, but it will not be the last. The conflict offers a sobering lesson; deterrence must evolve or risk obsolescence. Integrated deterrence—blending military, economic, cyber, and diplomatic tools—is no longer optional. Unlike nuclear weapons, drones are accessible, scalable, and deniable. Their proliferation is horizontal, not vertical, spreading across small states, insurgent groups, and private firms.

As drone technology spreads, so does the risk of escalation, miscalculation, and asymmetric retaliation. The battlefield is no longer bound by geography; it is shaped by bandwidth, optics, and algorithmic intent.

Conclusion

            Nagorno-Karabakh was not just a battlefield; it was a turning point. It exposed how technological agility can dismantle legacy doctrines and how drones, once tactical novelties, now shape strategic outcomes. In this new era, deterrence is not about mass or might; it is about adaptability, integration, and speed. For nations still clinging to Cold War paradigms, the message is clear: evolve or be outmaneuvered. The future belongs to those who understand not just how to fight, but how to think in bandwidths, algorithms, and stories that shape the battlefield before the first shot is fired.

Evolution demands more than procurement; it requires imagination. Nations must rethink not only how they defend, but what they defend and why. As drones blur the line between war and surveillance, between deterrence and provocation, the strategist of tomorrow must be fluent in both geopolitics and code. The age of unmanned warfare is here and it is rewriting the rules faster than most doctrines can keep up.

Vikramaditya Shrivastava is a master’s student in international relations, security, and strategy at OP Jindal Global University.

Drones and the Death of Deterrence: Lessons from Nagorno-Karabakh 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.

These domains and areas are being weaponized for strategic purposes, as adversaries target cross-domain North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) interests with the intent of weakening the Western security architecture and fragmenting alliance cohesion. The Trump administration must work closely with NATO allies to confront the many challenges that face them.

Strategic challenges, such as the Arctic, deep sea, and space, and the threats they pose require improved joint military readiness, enhanced deterrence by denial capabilities, and improved intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

“Over the last 15 years,” writes Scott Savits, “the Arctic has become a renewed theatre of military competition…. [T]op Russian officials have referred to the Arctic as Russia’s ‘Mecca,’ and a large fraction of Russia’s economy is based on Arctic fossil fuels and minerals.” Frustrating Russian efforts to gain a strategic advantage in the Arctic is of paramount importance to NATO’s deterrence mission.

Russia gaining an advantage in the Arctic will enhance its ability to establish escalation dominance against NATO in the event of a conflict with the alliance. Deterring Russia from broadening the scope of conflict, by threatening NATO’s vital interests in the Arctic, remains critical in dissuading other adversaries, such as China, from seeking to gain similar advantage.

With China developing and deploying new detection technologies in anti-submarine warfare, American nuclear submarine capabilities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to detection and targeting. China’s “Death Star” satellite claims to possess detection capabilities that renders the ocean transparent for up to 500 meters beneath the surface, putting American submarines at risk.

In the space domain, it is estimated that loss of access to space would come at a cost of roughly One billion pounds per day to the British economy. The reported deployment of Russian anti-satellite weapons systems (ASAT) in space are clearly coercive moves designed to threaten NATO’s space assets.

Russia’s weaponization of space is especially concerning as NATO depends on space to conduct an array of operations across the spectrum of deterrence and defence. Most notably, NATO airpower relies on space-based and space-dependent systems to fulfil a series of critical security functions. Leveraging robust deterrence capabilities in orbit, through targeting Russian and Chinese space-based military and non-military assets, is critical to securing NATO’s vital interests in space.

Beyond seeking strategic advantage, China is also expanding and modernising its nuclear arsenal at an unprecedented rate since the end of the Cold War. The Pentagon forecasts that China will be a nuclear peer of the United States by 2035. The latest figures published by the Federation of American Scientists show that China now possesses at least 500 operationally deployed nuclear weapons—up 43 percent from 2020.

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to undermine international norms by persisting in threats to use battlefield nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Russia also deploys dual-use satellite technologies in space, capable of carrying nuclear warheads into orbit, in direct contravention of long-standing international treaties such as the Outer Space Treaty (1967), which prohibits the weaponization and nuclearization of space.

Meanwhile, Iran, a latent nuclear state, coerces the West by threatening the weaponization of its nuclear program. Iran also infiltrated the West by creating extremist networks through community centers, laundering money in major European and American cities that is used by criminal gangs to plot and execute terrorist attacks.

Proxies supported by Iran, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, can also launch increasingly devastating attacks. Furthermore, attacks like October 7, 2024, or September 11, 2001, do not warrant nuclear retaliation. A nuclear response to a terrorist attack, depending on the attack, is likely a disproportionate response.

China and Russia also engage in subversive activities within the cyber domain, sowing discord by using disinformation, intellectual property theft, and malign interference to destabilize NATO member states. Cyberattacks on critical national infrastructure can also inflict severe levels of damage. The appropriateness of cross-domain responses is yet to be decided.

The cyber attacks against Estonia in 2007, which lasted for 22 days, did not result in the triggering of NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause. Yet, it was an attack on a NATO member state. The character of the attack complicated the process by which a viable and appropriate retaliatory response could be devised. In a multidomain threat landscape, hostile state actors conducting their operations in the grey zone can claim plausible deniability.

China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea also hold joint exercises, share intelligence, exchange military capabilities, and share a diplomatic and political kinship. This axis of Western adversaries shares the same geopolitical and economic objectives. They seek to replace the international rules-based order and establish alternative institutional frameworks to global order that undermine concepts such as democracy, human rights, rule of law, and national sovereignty.

Militarily, nowhere is this more apparent than in Russia, where Iranian drones and North Korean soldiers were provided to aid Putin’s war in Ukraine. Politically, emerging international blocs such as the BRICS demonstrate the extent to which countries like China and Russia are gaining traction in driving alternatives to the current order.

“As hybrid threats evolve to encompass the whole of digital and networked societies,” wrote Sean Monaghan, “so too will the capabilities required to deter them. A more complex threat environment will make predicting attacks and vulnerabilities more difficult, so nations may rely more on resilience.”

Hence, for deterrence to be effective today, credibility must incorporate more than hard power capabilities. Red lines must be communicated effectively across different channels. Resolve must be demonstrated through a force posture that includes a willingness to establish escalation dominance in a crisis scenario. The art of deterrence is also about determining and holding at risk what an adversary values.

As the outgoing US Secretary of Defence General (Ret.) Lloyd Austin said in 2022, cross-domain deterrence “is the right mix of technology, operational concepts, and capabilities—all woven together and networked in a way that is credible, flexible and so formidable that it will give any adversary pause…. [It is] multidomain, spans numerous geographic areas of responsibility, is united with allies and partners, and is fortified by all instruments of national power.”

Ultimately, deterrence is about credibly threatening to impose unacceptable costs, by denial or punishment, on a would-be aggressor. Those costs must convince the would-be aggressor that they outweigh any potential gains made.

Therefore, it is imperative for the US and NATO to increase cross-domain capabilities to match those of adversaries. Adopting a combination of different violent and non-violent means, to conduct deterrence credibly across multiple domains and at various levels of intensity, will enhance NATO’s ability to secure its vital interests in an increasingly volatile era of global strategic competition.

Alex Alfirraz Scheers holds a diploma in Politics and History from the Open University, a bachelor’s degree in War Studies and History from King’s College London, and a master’s degree in National Security Studies from King’s College London. He has held research positions at the Henry Jackson Society and the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, and his articles have been published in the Diplomat, Times of Israel, RealClearDefense, and the Royal United Services Institute. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

Deterrence and NATO’s Emerging Security Environment 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.

Since the establishment of the Republic of Korea in 1948, the Korean Peninsula has experienced violent ideological strife, culminating in a war that claimed the lives of 10 percent of its people. The following decades were marked by authoritarian governments in the South and a cult-like regime in the North—cloaked in the guise of communism.

During authoritarian rule in South Korea, which was often characterized as a dictatorship, martial law was declared on several occasions to maintain law and order. It also served as a crucial mechanism in preparing for potential invasions by North Korea.

Martial law in South Korea refers to a legal framework under which the administrative and judicial powers of the state are transferred to a military commander. This extraordinary measure is stipulated under the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. It grants the president authority to declare martial law in circumstances of war, armed conflict, or other national emergencies of similar gravity. Its objective is to address military requirements or ensure public safety and order when normal governance is deemed inadequate.

Martial law is divided into two types: emergency martial law and security martial law. Emergency martial law grants the government sweeping powers, including the suspension of the warrant system, restrictions on freedom of the press, curbs on publication rights, limitations on assembly and association, and the overriding of civilian courts and government agencies.

These measures are intended to ensure swift and decisive action in times of crisis. When martial law is declared, the president must notify the National Assembly immediately. If the Assembly demands its termination through a majority vote, the president is legally obligated to comply. While the National Assembly retains legislative authority, there are exceptional cases where a military regime may temporarily assume control, particularly during a coup or other events that disrupt the constitutional order.

On December 3 at 10 p.m., President Yoon Suk-Yeol declared martial law. This marked the first time in 45 years that martial law was invoked in South Korea. President Yoon justified the decision by citing actions of the National Assembly and opposition party, which he claimed were paralyzing the judicial and administrative systems. Specifically, their pursuit of numerous impeachment motions against officials and ministers, coupled with a unilateral decision to reduce key public welfare and defense budgets for the coming year. Yoon specifically cited these actions as undermining the essential functions of the state.

President Yoon framed them as attempts to disrupt constitutional order and overthrow the liberal democratic system. He went so far as to label the National Assembly a “den of criminals,” warning that the nation was in a “dire and precarious state.” To safeguard the liberal democratic system and protect citizens from North Korean communist forces and anti-state elements, he declared martial law, taking a step that would significantly escalate political tensions.

What followed was both alarming and puzzling. The Martial Law Commander was announced almost immediately, accompanied by a proclamation that limited civil liberties.

Troops were deployed to the National Assembly building, ostensibly to secure control, but the details of their mission remained unclear. Notably, the government refrained from taking control of broadcasting networks, implementing a curfew, or restricting internet access—measures that have traditionally been associated with martial law. This restraint raised questions about the intent and preparedness behind the declaration.

Within just two hours, 190 of the 300 National Assembly members gathered in an extraordinary session. Demonstrating remarkable decisiveness, they unanimously voted to overturn the martial law decision. The swift and unified response underscored the strength of South Korea’s democratic institutions, even under extraordinary pressure. The critical question that followed was whether President Yoon would adhere to this decision, given the volatile circumstances.

As of this writing, the democratic mechanisms appear to have prevailed. President Yoon complied with the Assembly’s decision, and the troops, whatever their initial directives may have been, refrained from any extreme actions. The system of checks and balances worked, averting what could be a prolonged and destabilizing crisis. This resolution highlights the resilience of South Korea’s democracy, even when tested under such dramatic circumstances.

The entire ordeal lasted only six hours, yet its implications are profound. It was bizarre, embarrassing, and politically damaging for the Yoon administration. The short-lived declaration of martial law raises significant questions about the president’s judgment, the advice he received, and the decision-making process within the government.

The absence of traditional martial law measures, such as media control or curfews, suggests either a miscalculation or an intent to avoid inflaming public outrage. Regardless, the political fallout will be severe and long-lasting.

This six-hour ordeal, while alarming, ultimately reaffirmed the strength of South Korea’s democratic systems. The National Assembly acted swiftly and decisively, and the president adhered to constitutional norms, ensuring the crisis did not escalate further.

However, the incident leaves lingering doubts about the future of the nation’s political climate and the ability of its leadership to navigate complex challenges. It will serve as a sobering case study in the delicate balance of power, the risks of executive overreach, and the resilience required to uphold democratic principles.

The “silver lining” of this affair is undeniable; the democratic system worked. Yet the political and reputational costs will shape South Korea’s discourse for months, if not years, to come. It is a stark reminder that democracy, though tested, must remain vigilant and steadfast in protecting its core values against both external and internal threats.

LTG (Ret.) Chun In-Bum was the commander of the Republic of Korea’s Special Forces Command. He is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. 

Six Hours of Crisis: Martial Law, Democracy, and Leadership in South Korea was originally published on Global Security Review.

For NATO to improve its deterrence strategy it must prioritize cybersecurity, enhance space asset resilience, address hypersonic threats, improve missile defense systems, adapt to drone warfare, deter conventional-nuclear integration, monitor China’s nuclear capabilities, and strengthen political unity.

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The Evolving Context for Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.