Forecasting the Fifth Wave: Emerging Terrorist Threats in a Changing World

Mahmut Cengiz 

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The international defense community consistently struggles to predict the changing landscape of global terrorism. Counterterrorism practitioners have frequently been reactive rather than proactive, while the academic community has faced challenges in developing models that reflect terrorism’s complex and dynamic nature. These deficiencies led to the failure to anticipate and prevent major terrorist incidents such as the September 11 attacks in 2001, the 2002 Bali bombings, 

the 2015 Paris attacks, and most recently, Hamas’s coordinated attacks on October 7, 2023. This article builds on David Rapoport’s theory of the “four waves” of terrorism to explore a potential “fifth wave.” Analysis of data from the Global Terrorism Trends and Analysis Center (GTTAC) indicates that the strongest candidates for this fifth wave are the continuation of the religious wave—especially the Salafi-jihadist interpretation, and the activities of Iran-backed terrorist groups.

David Rapoport’s theory of the four waves of modern terrorism presents a typology grounded in political orientation and influenced by the historical, cultural, and ideological conditions of distinct periods characterized by heightened terrorist activity. A “wave” denotes a generational cycle of terrorism unified by a shared ideological drive, with revolutionary change serving as the central objective in each phase. Rapoport identifies four major waves: the Anarchist (1880–1920), Anti-Colonial (1920–1960), New Left (1960–1980), and Religious (1980–ongoing).

The first, the Anarchist Wave began in Russia and is widely recognized as the starting point of modern terrorism. It emerged from deep dissatisfaction with the slow pace of political reform, particularly frustration with entrenched authoritarian systems and the persistence of state power, which anarchists sought to dismantle in favor of stateless, egalitarian alternatives, and was characterized by the tactical use of dynamite and the assassination of high-ranking officials, including heads of state. 

Distributed Maritime Ops: Is the US Navy Ready for China?

Paulo Aguiar

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US foreign policy has consistently revolved around the structural imperative of preventing any single power from achieving hegemonic control over the Eurasian landmass – an objective that stems from the hard material realities of geography, demography, and economic capacity. Eurasia contains the majority of the world’s population, its densest concentrations of industry, and the bulk of its critical natural resources. A dominant power on this supercontinent would be able to project influence over trade routes, energy flows, and strategic technologies. This would directly threaten US economic security and freedom of maneuver.

The contemporary strategic landscape is marked by the emergence of a loose but increasingly coordinated axis of revisionist powers: China, Russia, and Iran. Each seeks, in its own theater, to erode the US-led order that constrains its ambitions. China’s bid is the most structurally significant, given its scale. It commands the second-largest economy in the world, an industrial base capable of sustaining continuous military expansion, and a growing ability to project power regionally and, eventually, globally. In contrast, Russia and Iran act as regional disruptors. While they assert themselves militarily, their influence is ultimately limited by demographic decline and economic constraints.

The practical consequence of this alignment is triage. The United States will seek to deter Russia in Europe and contain Iran in the Middle East, but will ultimately concentrate the bulk of its resources and planning on China’s challenge in the Indo-Pacific.Taiwan’s geographic position at the heart of the first island chain makes it a critical strategic asset in the military balance between the United States and China. 

Stretching from Japan through the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines, and onward to Borneo, the first island chain serves as a natural maritime barrier limiting Chinese naval expansion into the Pacific. Taiwan sits squarely in the middle of this barrier, commanding vital sea lanes and air corridors. Its possession or loss would reshape the regional balance.If Beijing were to gain control over Taiwan, it would unlock operational pathways for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) into the Philippine Sea and beyond. 

Does China really pose an existential threat to America?

Sam Roggeveen

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On his blog, Marginal Revolution, American economist Alex Tabarrok has made some unflattering comparisons between the way the US educational and scientific establishments responded to the Soviet threat in the 1950s to the way it is responding to China today. Tabarrok calls it the “Sputnik vs DeepSeek Moment”:

“In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik triggering a national reckoning in the United States … The country’s self-image as a global leader was shaken, creating the Sputnik moment.The response was swift and ambitious. NSF funding tripled in a year and increased by a factor of more than ten by the end of the decade. The National Defense Education Act overhauled universities and created new student loan programs for foreign language students and engineers. High schools redesigned curricula around the “new math.” Homework doubled. NASA and ARPA (later DARPA) were created in 1958 …

America’s response to rising scientific competition from China – symbolised by DeepSeek’s R1 matching OpenAI’s o1 – has been very different. The DeepSeek Moment has been met not with resolve and competition but with anxiety and retreat.”The observation sparked New York Times columnist David Brooks to join with Tabarrok and speculate on the causes for this change.

Tabarrok’s preferred explanation is the rise of zero-sum thinking in the United States – the belief that China’s gain must be America’s loss. Brooks unwittingly reinforces this explanation in a column last week. He lists a series of awe-inspiring Chinese scientific and technological advances to illustrate the extent to which the United States is falling behind. Yet Brooks never acknowledges that China’s advances don’t necessarily come at the expense of the United States and are in many cases beneficial to it. He assumes that technological progress in China can only have negative consequences for America.

China proposes new global AI cooperation organisation

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SHANGHAI: China said on Saturday (Jul 26) that it wanted to create an organisation to foster global cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI), positioning itself as an alternative to the US as the two vie for influence over the transformative technology.China wants to help coordinate global efforts to regulate fast-evolving AI technology and share the country's advances, Premier Li Qiang told the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.

US President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday released an AI blueprint aiming to vastly expand US AI exports to allies in a bid to maintain the American edge over China in the critical technology.Li did not name the United States but appeared to refer to Washington's efforts to stymie China's advances in AI, warning that the technology risked becoming the "exclusive game" of a few countries and companies.

This service is not intended for persons residing in the E.U. By clicking subscribe, I agree to receive news updates and promotional material from Mediacorp and Mediacorp’s partners.China wants AI to be openly shared and for all countries and companies to have equal rights to use it, Li said, adding that Beijing was willing to share its development experience and products with other countries, particularly the Global South. The Global South refers to developing, emerging or lower-income countries, mostly in the southern hemisphere.

How to regulate AI's growing risks was another concern, Li said, adding that bottlenecks included an insufficient supply of AI chips and restrictions on talent exchange.Overall global AI governance is still fragmented. Countries have great differences, particularly in terms of areas such as regulatory concepts, institutional rules," he said. "We should strengthen coordination to form a global AI governance framework that has broad consensus as soon as possible."

What China really wants for Russia and Ukraine

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was probably dissembling when he recently confided in Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy, that China “can’t accept Russia losing its war against Ukraine as this could allow the United States to turn its full attention to China.”Why might Wang have been less than fully truthful? For starters, he’s a diplomat, and all diplomats have a tendency to express less than fully truthful views. To confuse adversaries and keep them guessing is a lesson that diplomats in all countries have mastered.

In addition, Wang represents a totalitarian state with a huge propaganda apparatus which, like all such entities, is prone to prefer manipulation to truth telling.But the misleading nature of Wang’s private comments is most evident in the fact that, contrary to his suggestion that the U.S. is China’s greatest worry at the moment, it is actually Russia.Yes, China certainly wants the U.S. off its back, and any distraction is therefore a good distraction. But America isn’t next door, and it isn’t involved in a debilitating war. Despite the Trump administration’s loud barks, it has yet to resort to biting. Nor is it clear, as the ongoing tussle over tariffs shows, just what biting China would entail.

In contrast, Russia is a far more immediate security concern, and maybe even threat, for China.Consider these three possible outcomes in terms of China’s security interests.If Russia wins in Ukraine — however victory is defined — Putin will be flush with self-confidence and arrogance, his imperialist adventure having proven to be successful in making Russia great again. Such a Russia might be foolhardy enough to attack a NATO country or attempt to annex northern Kazakhstan, neither of which would benefit China.

Next would be a change in tone. A triumphant Russia could begin to flex its muscles and challenge its sworn “no limits” friendship with China. Perhaps the terms of the partnership could be amended to reflect Russia’s new status? Perhaps Beijing might consider paying more for energy from Russia? Perhaps China could stop publishing irredentist maps with Chinese names for Russian cities?

Microsoft servers hacked by Chinese groups, says tech giant

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Chinese "threat actors" have hacked some Microsoft SharePoint servers and targeted the data of the businesses using them, the firm has said.China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have "exploited vulnerabilities" in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.

The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.China firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber attacks and cyber crime," China's US embassy spokesman said in a statement.At the same time, we also firmly oppose smearing others without solid evidence," continued Liu Pengyu in the statement posted on X.

Microsoft said it had "high confidence" the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing," Microsoft said in a statement.

It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server "enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors".The UK's National Cyber Security Centre said this included "a limited number" of SharePoint Server customers in the UK.

Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told BBC News it was "aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies".Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims' SharePoint data, he said.

China-Backed Hackers Breach U.S. Nuclear Weapons Agency

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Hackers sponsored by the Chinese state have breached a number of U.S. government institutions, including the agency responsible for overseeing the security of America’s nuclear arsenal, according to a report. At least two cyber warfare groups, Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon, have exploited weaknesses in Microsoft’s SharePoint software to break into the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, a source told Bloomberg, with other targets including the Department of Education, 

the Florida Department of Revenue, and the Rhode Island General Assembly. Microsoft says it is investigating the breaches and that it has “high confidence” those responsible will “continue to integrate [these vulnerabilities] into their attacks,” with others reported against government entities in Canada, Brazil, Spain, Indonesia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. China’s Embassy in Washington denies any involvement in the hacks, describing the allegations as “unfounded speculation” and adding it “firmly oppose[s] smearing others without solid evidence.” The Daily Beast has reached out to the U.S. agencies allegedly affected for comment.

War with China ‘would result in large-scale casualties,’ Army general says

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The number of casualties the U.S. military would suffer in a war against China could be unlike anything it has experienced during the post-9/11 wars, said Lt. Gen. Joel “JB” Vowell, deputy commanding general for U.S. Army Pacific.Our assumptions for planning is that casualty estimates will be much higher than you might have seen or witnessed as part of the Global War on Terror between Iraq and Afghanistan and other places where there are very small numbers, relatively in contacts who were who were killed and injured, as compared to large-scale combat operations,” Vowell recently told reporters. “A potential conflict with the People’s Republic of China likely would result in large-scale casualties.”

China has a growing arsenal of hypersonic missiles and other advanced weapons that could pose a major threat to U.S. ships, including aircraft carriers, which can have a crew of up to 5,000 sailors and Marines.Those potential casualties are there, so we have to calculate that mass casualty event,” Vowell told reporters at a July 22 Defense Writers Group event, which is based at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Sign up for Task & Purpose Today to get the latest in military news each morning, and The Pentagon Rundown for a weekly breakdown of the biggest stories every Friday.

Email addressSign UpThe Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, has conducted 50 war games in recent years looking at a possible Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan that estimated between 9,500 to 21,000 U.S. troops would be killed and wounded, and that the American military would lose dozens of ships and hundreds of planes, said retired Marine Corps Col. Mark Cancian, a senior advisor with the think tank.

The reason the casualty numbers are not higher is the scenarios did not envision U.S. troops being involved in ground combat, Cancian told Task & Purpose. Taiwanese ground forces fought Chinese troops in these wargames.U.S. casualties would likely run higher if American ground troops were tasked with defending Taiwan or recapturing lost allied territories, such as Matsu and Kinmen islands, which are governed by Taiwan, he said.

The Pentagon Predicted They Might Collapse. 6 Years Later, South Yemen Is Winning (I Was on the Ground)

Michael Rubin

ATEQ, YEMEN—Driving from Aden to Ateq, the capital of Yemen’s Shabwah Governorate, takes cars, trucks, and buses past Wadi Omran, which was once ground zero in the fight against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.The road is pockmarked by the scars of earlier car bombs and improvised explosive devices. Our driver casually pointed out bullet-pockmarked and burnt-out schoolhouses and compounds where Al Qaeda had attacked the billeted Shabwani Elite forces, killing dozens each time. Every checkpoint had posters of the martyrs who died manning it.

Today, though, Ateq is peaceful. So too is neighboring Abyan that sits between Aden and Shabwa, a province Yemenis long considered their version of Appalachia—poor, dangerous, and tribal. The Local Shabwa Defense Forces man checkpoints. They are polite and relaxed but deceptively astute. Superior officers watch them via closed circuit cameras. 

The Southern Transitional Council’s intelligence service provides tips about the movement of contraband and terrorists; recently, for example, the checkpoints confiscated captagon pills hidden below bullets in AK-47 magazines. In Abyan, where tribal ties are strong, soldiers focused on Yemenis from outside the region to ensure each had a reasonable region for being in the area; if drivers appeared nervous or evasive, it was easy enough to search vehicles. It might be manpower intensive, but it works.

Summer in Aden is brutal. Temperatures soar upwards of 110 Fahrenheit, and Aden’s humidity can make Washington, DC, seem like Phoenix, Arizona, by comparison. Many stores stay closed until around 4 pm, but then the city comes alive after the sun goes down and the sea breeze starts.The streets remain crowded until the early hours of morning, with kids playing football, foosball, or even billiards on the street, adults gossiping, and young teens challenging old men to dominoes while imams urge people—often unsuccessfully—to come to the mosque for prayer time. Such an atmosphere requires a sense of security. Aden has it, even though no foreign soldiers patrol the streets of the South Yemeni capital.

Is civil war coming to the West?

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A question that would have seemed absurd a decade ago, is becoming ever more prevalent. In recent weeks, there have been anti-migration demonstrations from Spain to Ireland to Poland. There is no indication that they will not become more common in the months ahead.One person who has been sounding the alarm on this is not a populist firebrand or media demagogue but a professor of War Studies at King’s College London.Professor David Betz, a strategist by trade, has done the ideological arithmetic: The chance for civil war or civil war-like conditions in western societies is now above 50 per cent and he calls this a conservative estimate.

I had Professor Betz on the Brussels Signal Podcast a few weeks back and the entire conversation is worth watching.At first glance, these claims might seem alarmist. But Betz’s analysis is not speculation, it is estimation. He built it on decades of academic study into the anatomy of war and is simply looking at a probable sequence of events.What he, along with thinkers like Barbara Walter, has grasped is that the factors once reserved for forecasting civil war in “faraway lands” are now visible across Europe and North America.Contemporary Western societies, to borrow Betz’s phrase, stand in “an explosive configuration” with the roots of this volatility being what the research calls “fractionalisation”.

This phenomenon describes societies that are broken into self-defining blocs, increasingly segmented along ethnic, cultural, or ideological lines.Interestingly, in the West, this condition did not appear out of the blue but is the result of decades of political engineering by an out-of-touch, post-national elite, one that no longer shares its constituents’ concerns or understands them.If in some countries only 34 per cent of European citizens say they have benefited from European Union integration, yet 71 per cent of the elite claim the opposite, one can see an ever-widening gap between the elites and the majority of the population.At the heart of this crisis sits the “failure of the multicultural project”.

Who are the winners and losers in US-EU trade deal?

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The US and EU have struck what is being billed as the largest trade deal in history, after talks in Scotland.It actually resembles the framework for an agreement rather than a full trade deal, with details still unclear.But the headline figures announced by President Donald Trump and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen do offer clues about which sectors and groups could be hit hardest or have most to gain.Follow reaction live

After promising new trade deals with dozens of countries, Trump has just landed the biggest of them all.It looks to most commentators that the EU has given up more, with instant analysis by Capital Economics suggesting a 0.5% knock to GDP.There will also be tens of billions of dollars pouring into US coffers in import taxes.But the glowing headlines for Trump may not last long if a slew of economic data due later this week show that his radical reshaping of the US economy is backfiring.

Figures on inflation, jobs, growth and consumer confidence will give a clearer picture on whether Trump's tariffs are delivering pain or gain.Ordinary Americans are already aggrieved at the increased cost of living and this deal could add to the burden by hiking prices on EU goods.While not as steep as it could have been, the hurdle represented by a 15% tariff rate is still significant, and it is far more pronounced than the obstacles that existed before Trump returned to office.

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods bought from other countries. Typically, they are a percentage of a product's value. So, a 15% tariff means that a $100 product imported to the US from the EU will have a $15 dollar tax added on top - taking the total cost to the importer to $115.Companies who bring foreign goods into the US have to pay the tax to the government, and they often pass some or all of the extra cost on to customers.tock markets in Asia and Europe rose on Monday after news emerged of the deal framework.

Microwaves Against the Swarm: A New Phase in US Counter-Drone Strategy.

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The U.S. Army is expanding its efforts to counter emerging threats by investing in breakthrough technologies. Among them, microwave weapons now stand at the center of a new initiative designed to address the growing use of drones on contemporary battlefields. On July 17, 2025, the Los Angeles-based technology firm Epirus announced a $43.5 million contract with the Army for the development of a new generation of microwave systems, designed to disable entire drone swarms with a single pulse.

Leonidas is a next-generation High-Power Microwave (HPM) system developed by Epirus, specifically designed to neutralize a wide range of electronic threats, starting with drones and drone swarms (Picture source: Epirus)This high-power electromagnetic pulse technology had already been tested in previous operational trials. 

During an exercise conducted on April 30, 2025, at Naval Station Leovigildo Gantioqui in the Philippines, the Epirus system demonstrated its ability to neutralize multiple drones simultaneously in a tropical environment. According to Captain Bray McCollum, cited in a U.S. Army release, the exercise confirmed the system’s effectiveness under demanding climate conditions, which constitutes a necessary step toward operational readiness.

Leonidas is a next-generation High-Power Microwave (HPM) system developed by Epirus, specifically designed to neutralize a wide range of electronic threats, starting with drones and drone swarms. Built on gallium nitride (GaN)-based solid-state technology and utilizing long-pulse high-energy emissions, Leonidas relies on a fully software-defined architecture. 

This allows for continuous performance optimization without the need for hardware changes, by adapting range and efficiency through each software update. The system is modular and available in several configurations, including a fixed installation, a mobile version that can be mounted on vehicles, and a pod format suitable for airborne or ground-based platforms. This flexibility gives it high operational adaptability across various deployment environments.

AI arms race: US and China weaponize drones, code and biotech for the next great war

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AI investor Arnie Bellini predicted that future battles will be fought by robots, and that the U.S.’s cyber and AI capabilities might be able to prevent a war with China before it starts.

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!From drone swarms to gene-edited soldiers, the United States and China are racing to integrate artificial intelligence into nearly every facet of their war machines — and a potential conflict over Taiwan may be the world’s first real test of who holds the technological edge.

For millennia, victory in war was determined by manpower, firepower and the grit of battlefield commanders. However, in this ongoing technological revolution, algorithms and autonomy may matter more than conventional arms.War will come down to who has the best AI," said Arnie Bellini, a tech entrepreneur and defense investor, in an interview with Fox News Digital.

U.S. planners now consider Taiwan the likely locus of a 21st-century great power conflict. Though America doesn’t formally ally with Taiwan, it has steadily armed the island and shifted its forces to focus on the Indo-Pacific.Taiwanese conscripts look on during a visit by Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te to a military base in Taichung on June 28, 2024. (SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)

The Pentagon is responding with urgency, and nowhere is that transformation more visible than in the U.S. Army's sweeping AI overhaul.The Army goes all-in: $36 billion AI investment Under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the Army has launched a $36 billion modernization initiative aimed directly at countering China in the Indo-Pacific.

By 2026, each of its 10 active combat divisions will be equipped with roughly 1,000 drones, dramatically shifting the battlefield from crewed helicopters to autonomous systems.Army leaders highlight that legacy weapons and bureaucratic lag are incompatible with future warfare. The new push includes AI-assisted command-and-control, real-world testing under challenging conditions in places like the Philippines and a rapid feedback model to keep doctrine updated.

Pentagon Risks Falling Behind Rivals in AI-Powered Influence and Info Ops: Study

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The US military needs more advanced generative AI tools to keep pace with Russia and China in the realm of online influence and information warfare, a Pentagon-backed study has revealed.Generative AI could give US forces a critical edge in influence campaigns, an area where rivals are already operating at a scale the Pentagon struggles to match, according to research published by California-based nonprofit policy think tank RAND Corporation.It emphasized that America could fall even further behind if it fails to adopt the tech at scale.

To assess current efforts, RAND consulted a small group of subject-matter experts, industry leaders, and other government researchers. It also hosted a workshop with influence-focused units to identify their operational and tactical needs for AI.Funding, Coordination Needed The study found that the Pentagon must overcome a serious lack of investment and coordination to stay competitive. Stronger collaboration among stakeholders could bolster tech procurement and long-term sustainment, it said.

Moreover, the paper said buying and fielding generative AI will require a smarter, more flexible approach, along with a plan to keep those tools running across joint and mission-specific teams.Already, multiple organizations are acquiring duplicative tools, leading to redundancies in investments,” RAND said.The cost of sustainment activities over the life cycle (routine maintenance, upgrades for improved capability, changes for interoperability) makes this need for coordination even more imperative to meet.”

The study highlighted that generative AI is a tool, not a standalone solution, for addressing challenges in influence operations, from planning and analysis to measuring impact.While influence ops are often associated with multimedia messaging, RAND said AI’s true potential lies in supporting campaign planning, decision-making, and real-time assessments.

What China really wants for Russia and Ukraine

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was probably dissembling when he recently confided in Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy, that China “can’t accept Russia losing its war against Ukraine as this could allow the United States to turn its full attention to China.”

Why might Wang have been less than fully truthful? For starters, he’s a diplomat, and all diplomats have a tendency to express less than fully truthful views. To confuse adversaries and keep them guessing is a lesson that diplomats in all countries have mastered.In addition, Wang represents a totalitarian state with a huge propaganda apparatus which, like all such entities, is prone to prefer manipulation to truth telling.

But the misleading nature of Wang’s private comments is most evident in the fact that, contrary to his suggestion that the U.S. is China’s greatest worry at the moment, it is actually Russia.Yes, China certainly wants the U.S. off its back, and any distraction is therefore a good distraction. But America isn’t next door, and it isn’t involved in a debilitating war. Despite the Trump administration’s loud barks, it has yet to resort to biting. Nor is it clear, as the ongoing tussle over tariffs shows, just what biting China would entail.

In contrast, Russia is a far more immediate security concern, and maybe even threat, for China.Consider these three possible outcomes in terms of China’s security interests.If Russia wins in Ukraine — however victory is defined — Putin will be flush with self-confidence and arrogance, his imperialist adventure having proven to be successful in making Russia great again. Such a Russia might be foolhardy enough to attack a NATO country or attempt to annex northern Kazakhstan, neither of which would benefit China.

A Clash Over a Promotion Puts Hegseth at Odds With His Generals

Greg JaffeEric Schmitt and Helene Cooper

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In the spring, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decided not to promote a senior Army officer who had led troops over five tours in Afghanistan and Iraq because Mr. Hegseth suspected, without evidence, that the officer had leaked sensitive information to the news media, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

When Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II was cleared of the allegations, Mr. Hegseth briefly agreed to promote him, only to change course again early this month, the officials said. This time, Mr. Hegseth maintained that the senior officer was too close to Gen. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whom President Trump has accused of disloyalty.

Mr. Hegseth’s sudden reversal prompted a rare intervention from Gen. Dan Caine, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He urged Mr. Hegseth to reconsider, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.Mr. Hegseth met with General Sims one final time but refused to budge. General Sims is expected to retire in the coming months after 34 years in the military, officials said. Through a spokesman, General Sims and General Caine declined to comment. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on Mr. Hegseth’s role.

ImageMr. Hegseth decided not to promote Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Timeshe standoff over his promotion reflects an ongoing clash between Mr. Hegseth’s highly partisan worldview, in which he has written that the Democratic Party “really does hate America,” and the longstanding tradition of an apolitical military that pledges an oath to the Constitution.

Mr. Hegseth’s actions could shape the military’s top ranks for years to come. His insistence on absolute loyalty, backed with repeated threats of polygraphs, also creates uncertainty and mistrust that threaten to undermine the readiness and effectiveness of the force, officials said.The tension between top military officers and their civilian leaders has been persistent since the earliest days of Mr. Trump’s second term, when senior administration officials ordered the removal of General Milley’s portrait from a Pentagon hallway.

Targeting at Machine Speed: The Capabilities—and Limits—of Artificial Intelligence

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The United States Army’s ability to deliver precision fires and effects is fundamentally tied to its doctrinal targeting methodology: decide, detect, deliver, assess (D3A). Field Manual 3-60, Army Targeting prescribes the use of D3A as an integrative approach requiring cooperation across multiple warfighting functions. As the Army advances under the pressures of multidomain operations as its operational concept, optimizes its contributions to US strategic competition with near-peer adversaries, and pursues its recently announced transformation initiative, the necessity of integrating artificial intelligence into targeting workflows is paramount.

AI technologies have already proven their utility across a range of defense applications, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance processing, decision support, and autonomous systems operations. Over the past several years, a growing body of academic research has explored these capabilities, yielding insights with significant implications for military policy and doctrine. Key takeaways from this body of work include:AI in targeting presents a moral dilemma—it must be employed as a tool, not as a substitute for the warfighter’s judgment.

Time is the most compelling performance metric for evaluating AI effectiveness in the targeting process.AI offers undeniable scaling advantages, particularly in data processing and decision acceleration.Human commanders must remain the final arbiters of lethal force, preserving the principle of human-on-the-loop decision-making.AI should augment—not replace—critical targeting functions, such as rules of engagement validation, proportionality assessments, and determinations of military necessity.

Even with these insights established by research, AI’s integration into the D3A targeting methodology remains underdeveloped in operational doctrine. There is therefore a central question the Army has yet to answer: Can AI enable the D3A cycle to achieve faster, more reliable, and more effective targeting—while preserving accountability through human oversight?

Trump’s Ukraine Policy Deserves a Reassessment

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Donald Trump is an easy man to loathe—his lies, cruelty, vindictiveness, corruption, disregard for constitutional norms, and sheer recklessness are unprecedented in an American president. These qualities infect both his subordinates, many of whom are palpably unfit for their positions, and the congressional party composed largely of cowards and sycophants over which he presides. Both he and they are truly awful.

Focusing on all of those characteristics, however, is the wrong way to understand him, or even assess what he is doing. He is easy to caricature, and many have done so, turning him into a storybook villain reminiscent of J. K. Rowling’s Lord Voldemort or J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sauron. The truth is more complicated and more interesting.

You can see the tendency to caricature Trump at work in the reactions to his evolving Ukraine policy. Plenty of thoughtful, normally moderate observers have insisted that the president is, wittingly or not, a Russian agent, and that his hatred of Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is so bitter that he wants Russian President Vladimir Putin to win. They insist that his policy is, in fact, shaped not merely by respect for Putin but also by a kind of gangsterish affection for the Russian dictator, leading to the de facto alignment of American policy with that of Russia. Yet this view simply does not square with the facts.

The transfers of American arms to Ukraine that were authorized during Biden’s administration have continued, with two brief interruptions: one in March, following the Oval Office visit during which Vice President J. D. Vance and Trump himself berated a startled Zelensky, and another in June, when the Pentagon suspended those shipments. The first suspension lasted a week, and the latter a few days. In June, the Pentagon acted without Trump’s authorization, a testament to the absence of an orderly foreign-policy process. The White House quickly reversed that decision, and the arms continue to flow.

The United States has also hammered out a deal with NATO countries to purchase American hardware—particularly Patriot air-defense missiles and supporting radar and control units—to either transfer to Ukraine or replace their own systems, which the Europeans will then send to Ukraine. Trump has publicly committed to this arrangement, and even hinted at the transfer of more-advanced offensive weaponry. By all accounts, the process for doing this is under way, to the point that Ukraine has been moved ahead of Switzerland in the queue for Patriot sales.

SpaceX probes for cause of Starlink's global satellite network outage

ReutersJuly 

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July 24 (Reuters) - SpaceX's Starlink satellite network was back up and running on Friday as engineers hunted for the root cause of one of its biggest international outages the night before, a rare disruption for the powerful internet system set off by an internal software failure.Users in the U.S. and Europe began experiencing the outage at around 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) Thursday, according to Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage tracker that said as many as 61,000 user reports to the site were made.

In Ukraine, where troops rely heavily on Starlink for battlefield communications, the outage affected combat operations as service was "down across the entire front," said Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine's drone forces.Starlink, active in roughly 140 countries and territories and used by a growing number of militaries and government agencies, is a key source of revenue for Elon Musk's SpaceX. The network has grown rapidly since 2020 into a disruptive force in the satellite communications industry.Starlink acknowledged the outage on its X account Thursday and said "we are actively implementing a solution."

The service mostly resumed after 2.5 hours, Michael Nicolls, SpaceX vice president of Starlink Engineering, wrote on X. By 8 p.m., the company wrote on X that the "network issue has been resolved, and Starlink service has been restored."The outage was due to failure of key internal software services that operate the core network," Nicolls said, apologizing for the disruption and vowing to find its cause.Musk also apologized: "Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again," the SpaceX CEO wrote on X.

The outage was a rare hiccup for SpaceX's most commercially sensitive business. Experts speculated whether the service, known for its resilience and speedy development, was beset by a glitch, a botched software update or perhaps a cyberattack.Doug Madory, an expert at the internet analysis firm Kentik, said such a sweeping global outage was unusual.This is likely the longest outage ever for Starlink, at least while it became a major service provider," Madory said.

Signals, Noise, and Narratives: Cyber Operations Against the Space Sector Amid the Israel-Iran War

Clémence Poirier

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On Friday June 13, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a series of preemptive kinetic and drone strikes against Iranian military assets and nuclear facilities. Shortly after Israeli kinetic strikes, cyber activities started to skyrocket. Dozens of pro-Iranian and pro-Israeli hacktivist groups, some of which are believed to be state-directed or state supported actors — took to social media claiming to have conducted numerous cyber operations to weaken the two belligerents. Hacktivist groups have also taken sides in this war. Notably, even pro-Palestinian, pro-Russian and pro-Pakistani groups have sided with pro-Iranian groups online, blurring the lines between different geopolitical conflicts.

Among the numerous targets, the space sector is a privileged one for hacktivists. Based on open-source analysis across hundreds of Telegram channels, 67 cyber operations targeting space companies and space systems, including military ones, were claimed by threat actors in less than 15 days.At least 22 different space entities were allegedly targeted, with most attacks affecting Israeli satellite operators including Elbit Systems and Rafael. Most attacks were distributed denial of service (DDoS) against company websites, which did not disrupt the functioning of any actual space systems.

As of this writing, the most active hacktivist group is a pro-Palestinian (and pro-Iranian) group called “Mr.Hamza.”, which had already been targeting the Israeli space sector in the context of the war in Gaza. Mr.Hamza conducted 23 DDoS attacks against websites of Israeli, British, and American space companies, including Israel Aerospace Industries, Kratos Defense and Security, and Orbit Communications Systems. Information from check-host, which is a tool for checking the availability of websites, corroborates these claims.

Hacktivist group “GhostSec” has claimed to have hacked into ten very small aperture terminals (VSATs) belonging to the Israeli Defense Forces. It is unknown whether the attack actually occurred as GhostSec did not explain how it supposedly hacked these two-way satellite ground systems. It is unclear whether the attack happened but GhostSec is not new to targeting the space sector as it previously claimed to have targeted GNSS receivers in Russia in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war, and in Israel in the context of the Israel/Palestinian conflict.

Tens of thousands knocked offline after software failure at Musk’s Starlink

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SpaceX’s Starlink suffered one of its biggest international outages on Thursday when an internal software failure knocked tens of thousands of users offline, a rare disruption for Elon Musk’s powerful satellite internet system.Users in the US and Europe began experiencing the outage at around 3pm EDT (1900 GMT), according to Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage tracker that said as many as 61,000 user reports to the site had been made.

Starlink, which has more than 6 million users across roughly 140 countries and territories, later acknowledged the outage on its X account and said “we are actively implementing a solution”.Starlink service mostly resumed after 2.5 hours, Michael Nicolls, Starlink vice-president of Starlink Engineering, wrote on X.The outage was due to failure of key internal software services that operate the core network,” Nicolls said, apologizing for the disruption and vowing to find its root cause.

Musk also apologized. “Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” the SpaceX CEO wrote on X.The outage was a rare hiccup for SpaceX’s most commercially sensitive business that had experts speculating whether the service, known for its resilience and rapid growth, had been beset by a glitch, a botched software update or even a cyber-attack.Doug Madory, an expert at the internet analysis firm Kentik, said the outage was global and that such a sweeping interruption was unusual.

“This is likely the longest outage ever for Starlink, at least while it became a major service provider,” Madory said.As Starlink has gained more users, SpaceX has focused heavily in recent months on updating its network to accommodate demands for higher speed and bandwidth.The company, in a partnership with T-Mobile, is also expanding the constellation with larger, more powerful satellites to offer direct-to-cell text-messaging services, a line of business in which mobile phone users can send emergency text messages through the network in rural areas.

Congress pushing Joint Task Force-Cyber, shaking up how DOD employs digital capabilities

Mark Pomerleau

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The House and Senate are pushing for a potential shakeup in how cyber operations and forces are synchronized and conducted in the Department of Defense.The proposals are part of each chamber’s version of the annual defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026.According to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version, DOD must conduct a study on force employment of cyber in support of combatant commands and evaluate establishing Joint Task Force-Cyber elements across those geographic combatant commands.

A proposal in the House, offered by Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems chairman Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., requires a similar evaluation, though focused specifically on the Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility.

AdvertisementSince becoming Chairman of the Subcommittee, I’ve grown increasingly concerned that we are not correctly organized for the cyber fight we find ourselves in today, let alone a more complex and consequential future fight. Our Cyber Command does great working national threats, but I want to ensure our Cyber team is postured right for a potential fight with China over Taiwan,” he said in a statement.

He said he plans to push for the establishment of a Joint Task Force-Cyber — not merely an evaluation — when both chambers of Congress convene to reconcile their bills.If we accept the reality that we are already in hostilities with our principal adversary in cyberspace, then there is no time to waste,” Bacon said.Bacon also pointed to the fact that this is not a new issue. In the fiscal 2023 NDAA, Congress required the creation of a similar organization — a Joint Task Force — in Indo-Pacom to support joint operations in the kinetic space before conflict, because the military was not sufficiently acting jointly, in lawmakers’ view.

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Trump unveils AI plan that aims to clamp down on regulations and 'bias'

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The Trump administration has unveiled a sweeping roadmap to develop artificial intelligence, pledging to boost US innovation while stripping away what it calls "bureaucratic red tape" and "ideological bias".The 28-page AI Action Plan outlines more than 90 policy actions for the rapidly developing technology that administration officials say can be implemented over the next year.

"We believe we're in an AI race, and we want the United States to win that race," Trump administration crypto czar David Sacks told reporters.The AI plan promises to build data centre infrastructure, and promote American technology - but was panned by critics who consider it an ideological flex by the White House.The plan also calls for federal agencies to review and repeal policies that stand in the way of AI development, and encourage AI in both government and the private sector.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign three related executive orders on Wednesday. One order will promote the international export of US-developed AI technologies, while another aims to root out what the administration describes as "woke" or ideologically biased AI systems.American development of AI systems must be free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas," the White House said. "With the right government policies, the United States can solidify its position as the leader in AI and secure a brighter future for all Americans."

Crypto czar Sacks added that the plan is partially focused on preventing AI technology from being "misused or stolen by malicious actors" and will "monitor for emerging and unforeseen risks from AI".The Trump administration has positioned the expansion of AI infrastructure and investments in the United States as a way to stay ahead of China.AI is a revolutionary technology that's going to have profound ramifications for both the economy and national security," Sacks said. "It's just very important that America continues to be the dominant power in AI."

Non-State Cyber Actors in the 12-Day War – The Gray Zone of LOAC, Part I

Gary Corn 

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With little fanfare, the traditional line between public and private war was just blurred yet again. Israel’s intense air strikes against Iran—capped off by the U.S. Operation Midnight Hammer—has understandably garnered the lion’s share of attention. Yet a significant cyber component of the conflict has flown somewhat under the radar. According to multiple sources, “hackers, patriotic hacktivists, online propagandists and opportunistic cybercriminals” somehow “linked” to both Iran and Israel were actively targeting the opposing sides throughout the so-called 12-Day War.

This should come as no surprise. Iran and Israel are both sophisticated cyber actors and have been exchanging cyber fires for years—directly and through proxies—including sabotage operations involving destructive physical effects (see e.g., here and here). Given the intensely adversarial relationship between Iran and Israel over many decades that has cycled through periods of escalation, covert proxy-conflict, and open warfare, much of this hostile cyber activity has taken place in the proverbial gray zone—what one Articles of War author aptly described as “that messy middle between war and peace” (see also, e.g., here and here)—defying easy characterization under international law.

In contrast, the current spate of hostile cyber activity has occurred in the context of and in relation to open warfare, where the applicability of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) offers, at least in theory, a greater degree of legal certainty. However, given the character of many of the actors engaged in these operations, and the nature of the operations themselves, it can be said that they are operating in the margins of LOAC, where legal uncertainty still predominates.

While one would expect that Israel and Iran have both leveraged organic cyber capabilities to conduct operations directly, for obvious reasons there is scant reporting available to confirm this. What has emerged is evidence of numerous independent, or perhaps loosely State-affiliated groups conducting a range of cyber operations, from espionage to information operations to disruptive and destructive effects operations against one side or the other of the conflict. 

Inside TSMC, the $1 Trillion Ghost Foundry Behind Nvidia's Crown

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Late one evening in 2010, in his Taipei home, Morris Chang topped off the wine in his guest’s glass. Across from him sat Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, who had flown in with a proposal that was as audacious as it was simple.Williams got straight to the point: We want to move the iPhone’s chipmaking to TSMC, but on a production line so advanced it existed only on paper.

TSMC had just poured billions into perfecting its current 28‑nanometer process, circuits roughly one‑ten‑thousandth the width of a human hair. Apple was asking for 20 nm, an even tighter scale that wasn’t on TSMC’s roadmap.Saying yes meant undertaking a frantic, high-stakes race to build new capacity from scratch. But CEO Morris Chang did not flinch. He listened calmly as Williams spoke. (By Chang’s own count, the Apple exec did 80% of the talking that night.)

Chang later told his team that “Missing Apple would cost us far more,” as he authorized a crash program to build the new production line. It’s a gamble of nearly half of TSMC’s cash reserves: A $9 billion investment, with 6,000 people working around the clock. In a record 11 months.That single decision, to go all-in for Apple, would rewire the entire semiconductor industry. It changed everything.

Fifteen years later, at 9:32 AM on July 9, 2025, the unthinkable flashed across trading desks worldwide: NVIDIA — a company once known only for its video-game graphics chips — had just dethroned Apple as the world’s most valuable company, with a staggering $4 trillion market cap.On Wall Street, traders whooped and headlines blared. Half a planet away in Taiwan, inside a humming TSMC fab, engineers in cleanroom suits stayed focused on their monitors. No applause, no champagne, just the steady whir of machines laying down atoms on silicon wafers. They didn’t need to cheer. The milestone had been engineered long ago.

By July 2025, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) had quietly grown into a trillion-dollar colossus itself, firmly in the world’s top ten by market value, well ahead of stalwarts like JPMorgan and Walmart and Visa.Worth barely a tenth of that was Intel, once the chip industry’s lodestar. All these were the direct result of a paradigm that TSMC had been forging for more than a decade.