Washington and Tel Aviv dedicated three years to war-gaming potential military action against Iran, meticulously planning strike sequences and identifying critical targets like Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan for bunker-busting operations. This extensive strategic preparation, however, constituted a fundamental miscalculation by Washington concerning Iran, exacerbated by the 'Dollar Chain' and its profound economic implications.
The US-Israeli war against Iran, initiated by President Donald Trump on February 28, has caused significant global economic disruptions by closing the Straits of Hormuz, impacting 20% of worldwide oil and natural gas transport, leading to surging fuel prices, increased electricity costs, and disruptions to critical supplies like fertilizers and semiconductors, severely affecting Asia-Pacific and African nations. The conflict accelerates US hegemony's decline by draining resources, creating a power vacuum for China to expand influence via diplomacy.
The Defense Department recently announced it was paring down its list of "critical technology areas" from 14 to six, focusing on applied artificial intelligence, biomanufacturing, contested logistics, quantum and battlefield information dominance, scaled directed energy, and scaled hypersonics. While this streamlining aims to concentrate funding, the Pentagon's approach risks creating significant blind spots by disproportionately investing in AI, which already attracts substantial private capital, while neglecting other vital technologies.
Barack Obama’s Presidential Center is reportedly causing significant community displacement in Chicago, particularly within the area surrounding Jackson Park. This development, characterized by the article as "The Gift That Keeps Taking," is allegedly financed by a network of "oligarch donors." The project's impact is centered on Jackson Park, a substantial 550-acre lakefront green expanse situated at Chicago's southeastern edge.
Donald Trump's approach to U.S. foreign policy, characterized by "maximum publicity" and brinkmanship, has reduced diplomacy to a "geopolitical meme war," prioritizing spectacle over careful, discreet negotiations. This has led to a call for the United States to restore back-channel diplomacy, minimizing officials, operating away from public pressure, and delaying publicity until outcomes are secured.
The UK lacks an adequate methodology for estimating foreign state information, influence, and interference (III) threats, a gap this research addresses by focusing on Russian digital disinformation operations. These include the Internet Research Agency's post-2017 terror attack amplification and the Social Design Agency's Doppelganger campaign.
Military Strategy Magazine, Spring 2026, v. 11, no. 1
On Defense and Offense: Revisiting Clausewitz, Mao Zedong and ThucydidesBeyond Random Acts of Touching: Six Core Pillars on How to Think About Security CooperationCan Clausewitz’s “Center of Gravity” Survive the Digital Age?The Trafalgar Imperative: Why the USAF Must Innovate or StagnateExtended Nuclear Deterrence StrategyMilitary Leadership In the 18th Century: Lessons for Strategic Leadership, Strategy, and Statesmanship Today
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a key partner with President Trump in the lead-up to the February 28 attack on Iran, has been significantly sidelined from subsequent U.S.-Iran truce talks, a humbling setback with significant risks for Israel. Weeks after Netanyahu predicted a joint U.S.-Israeli strike could lead to the Islamic Republic's demise, Israeli leaders were cut almost entirely out of the loop by the Trump administration, forcing them to gather intelligence through regional contacts and their own surveillance from inside the Iranian regime.
Democratic support for Israel is dramatically crumbling, a significant shift evident in primary campaigns nationwide and potentially leading to major U.S.-Israel policy changes if the party gains congressional control. A New York Times-Siena poll found only 24% of Democrats support additional aid to Israel, with 68% opposing, and 57% sympathizing more with Palestinians.
Ukraine has demonstrated significant strategic gains against Russia, primarily through its ingenuity in drone technology and exploiting Russia's faltering economy, despite reduced U.S. assistance. Ukrainian-designed drones are systematically striking high-value military and industrial targets over 1,000 kilometers inside Russia, including aviation bases, electronic component plants, and critical energy infrastructure like Lukoil platforms and refineries in Saratov and Tuapse, bypassing restrictions on Western missiles.
The Russo-Ukraine War in the Black Sea has seen significant naval engagements and strategic shifts since January 2022. Russia initially built up forces in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, deploying warships and bombers, and capturing Snake Island on February 24, 2022, while declaring a navigation prohibition.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently convened an emergency session in Paris, announcing the largest coordinated oil release in its fifty-year history, totaling 400 million barrels.
Mohammed Saad Baqer al-Saadi, a 32-year-old Iraqi commander of Iran-linked Kataib Hezbollah, was charged in New York with planning attacks on Jewish community sites in the US, revealing a new, alarming trend of "terrorism as a service." His detention in Turkey exposed Iran's efforts to use "disposable" operatives for hire, linked to 18 attacks in Europe and the UK, including firebombings of synagogues and community centers, and a stabbing in Golders Green. Hostile secret services, notably Iran and Russia, are now recruiting individuals via social media and encrypted platforms for minimal payments, often using cryptocurrency, to commit acts of terror without requiring ideological commitment.
Generative AI tools, despite their rapid improvements and demonstrated ability to outperform humans across numerous tasks, may not warrant the market's current euphoria, particularly as AI firms increasingly resort to debt financing. This financial trend necessitates a careful consideration of potential risks and what could go wrong.
Iran is leveraging viral Lego-style videos to disseminate polished propaganda globally, particularly targeting U.S. social media feeds with anti-war, pro-Iran messages. These videos portray President Donald Trump as a war criminal involved in a conflict on Israel's behalf, following the joint U.S.-Israeli military attack on Iran that commenced on Feb. 28.
Admiral Samuel Paparo's proposed "hellscape" strategy for Taiwan's defense, involving mass adoption of low-cost uninhabited systems, aims to deter a Chinese invasion by creating a multi-layered robotic defense across the Taiwan Strait. This strategy outlines four operational tiers to attrit invading forces from eighty kilometers out to the beaches.
Iran's nuclear program significantly accelerated in the months leading up to the 12-Day War in June 2025, with its uranium stockpile reaching 408.6 kilograms of 60 percent purity by May 17, 2025, despite ongoing diplomatic efforts. This surge, coupled with expanded operations and advanced centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, drastically reduced breakout time, culminating in U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
The May 2025 trilateral agreement between China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, formalizing the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) into Afghan territory, was celebrated by Beijing as a geopolitical turning point, yet within five months, Pakistan and Afghanistan exchanged artillery fire and airstrikes. This demonstrated Beijing’s economic statecraft proved insufficient for the region's political complexity, failing to address the ideological-military nexus causing volatility on the Af-Pak border.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) moved to close the Strait of Hormuz in late February, issuing warnings and employing drones, antiship missiles, and mines to disrupt oil exports and send energy prices soaring. This crisis demonstrates that closing a strait has become easier due to inexpensive technologies, while concentrated global trade magnifies the impact, with major powers increasingly willing to disregard international law.
Japan and the Philippines are significantly deepening defense cooperation, exemplified by the Balikatan 2026 military exercises where Japanese troops sank the Philippine BRP Quezon with Type 88 anti-ship missiles off northern Luzon. These exercises, the largest to date with 1,400 Japanese troops, implicitly targeted China, demonstrating a united front among "First Island Chain" democracies including Taiwan.
The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) _Regulations on Military Theory Work_ officially took effect on March 1, fundamentally reshaping the Chinese military theory development system. These regulations aim to accelerate the modernization of military theory, focusing on building a joint operational theory system capable of adapting to future warfare, particularly informatized and intelligentized warfare.
Russia seeks to intensify its relationship with China but publicly expresses anxiety that Beijing treats it as a junior partner, avoiding full commitment to their strategic partnership, as highlighted by a May 16 RT criticism. China, conversely, is irritated by Russia's deepening ties with North Korea, which Beijing views as its periphery and a move impacting regional security, including rearmament in South Korea and Japan.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) is systematically constructing a functional closed-door regime to retain core factors of production—people, capital, frontier technology, and proprietary information—within its borders, citing national security imperatives. This doctrine is evidenced by recent administrative regulations and enforcement actions, including the State Council's Orders No. 834 and 835, and the NDRC's prohibition of Meta's acquisition of Chinese AI firm Manus.
Chinese President Xi Jinping publicly praised the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement at a state banquet during a summit with Trump in Beijing, a gesture largely dismissed by Western media and China hawks. Trump swiftly reciprocated by downplaying Taiwan's strategic importance, refusing to defend it via traditional military deterrence, and pressuring the Taiwanese government on arms sales to manage the Taiwan Strait issue within an agreed "constructive strategic stability" framework.
Chinese President Xi Jinping secured a significant diplomatic victory during last week's summit with President Donald Trump in Beijing, establishing a framework for “a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability” over the next three years. While Beijing offered extensive pageantry, rhetorical fusion, and endorsements on Iran's nuclear program and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, along with economic deliverables like 200 Boeing aircraft and $17 billion in agricultural goods, these were largely reversals of prior disruptions.
US overseas military bases deliver unmatched reach but bind allied land and infrastructure into a strategic architecture, potentially pulling host countries into conflicts beyond their direct control. The core issue in alliance politics is the degree of control a host country retains once its territory becomes critical to a larger military system, a dynamic sharpened during intensified military activity.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last January, analysts have debated whether his administration is pursuing a sphere of influence strategy, an approach where great powers divide the world into privileged blocs.
President Trump convened a meeting with his senior national security team on Friday morning to discuss the potential for war with Iran, as two U.S. officials informed Axios. Trump is seriously considering launching new strikes against Iran, a decision contingent on the failure of last-minute negotiations, according to sources who have directly communicated with the president.
The war in Iran has imposed a $25 billion cost on global business, largely due to the weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz, exposing the vulnerabilities of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Conceived for peacetime, IMEC's reliance on maritime chokepoints and its proposed route through Israel now render it ill-suited for a region dominated by grey zone conflict.
Russia’s vision of “tomorrow’s war” differs sharply from NATO’s, envisioning a large-scale global confrontation with geoeconomic roots driven by the United States, rather than a localized conflict in north-eastern Europe. Moscow's core scenario involves a U.S.-led “21st century blitzkrieg” featuring waves of missile strikes coordinated with highly mobile, multi-domain forces, with a particular emphasis on maritime threats.
The Russian Duma passed a new law granting the Kremlin expanded authority to deploy military force abroad to defend Russian citizens if they are arrested or charged, including by international courts in which Russia does not participate. This measure, approved by the Federation Council and awaiting President Putin's signature, aims to intimidate other countries and international legal bodies, deterring them from prosecuting Russians, potentially including Putin himself, and thereby undermining the international legal system.
Parameters, Summer 2026 no. 56, no. 2
The State of the US ArmyFighting for Intelligence in Large-Scale Combat Operations: The Role of the Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion–NextGeopolitical Chessboard: How Vietnam Shapes American-Chinese CompetitionKey Themes in Sino-American HistoryRethinking Power: E. H. Carr’s Enduring Lessons for Modern StrategistsHow Is Going to War Like Buying a Car?: The Bargaining Model of WarA New Security Framework for NATO’s Eastern FlankTurning Tactical Victories into Strategic Success: Counterinsurgency in the Irish Civil War, 1922–23Closing the Gap Between Threat and Rival
A political communications student at Boston University, Abhijeet Dipke, recently launched a Google form to recruit members for a satirical political party he named 'the Cock…'. This seemingly innocuous digital initiative quickly escalated into a significant event, as highlighted by the article's subheadline, 'Twenty-One Million Followers and the State That Flinched'.