Simulating Southeast Asia’s Nuclear-security Crisis Responses

Morgan Michaels, Daniel Salisbury, Evan A. Laksmana

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This research paper reports on the insights and lessons learned from an IISS-organised two-day diplomatic crisis-simulation exercise held in Singapore on 24 and 25 November 2025. The exercise brought together 30 participants from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, comprising leading experts as well as government and security officials all attending in their private capacity. IISS experts also participated as ‘control teams’ playing the role of Australia, China, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The exercise centred on a hypothetical scenario involving a missing nuclear-armed submarine in Indonesian waters in 2031 and how it sparked broader military tensions between China and the Australia–UK–US (AUKUS) partnership. The exercise was designed to stress test how key Southeast Asian states could leverage the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) as a conflict-prevention and crisis-response mechanism.

As the submarine disaster occurred in Indonesian waters, the other Southeast Asian teams largely deferred to Indonesia to manage the crisis, while expressing support through and for the ADMM. Their focus tended to be on areas of particular national concern or where they believed they could contribute most effectively. A recurring theme throughout the simulation was the issue of strategic bandwidth, and the limited diplomatic capacity of ASEAN member states (AMS) to respond to a major nuclear-security crisis.

Nepal’s Election Marks a Generational Break—and a New Strategic Moment in the Himalayas

Anjali Kaur

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Nepal’s latest election has produced something the country has not seen in decades: a genuine generational rupture with its political past. But the significance extends well beyond Kathmandu. As a younger political figure rises to national leadership, Nepal is entering a new strategic moment—shaped by intensifying geopolitical competition, shifting development partnerships, and a generation of voters who have run out of patience with institutions that promise reforms but rarely deliver.

The victory of former Kathmandu mayor Balendra “Balen” Shah places a leader at the helm who sits outside Nepal’s traditional political establishment. At 35, Shah represents a stark contrast to the governing class that has defined Nepal’s politics since the end of the monarchy—a small circle of senior party figures, many now in their 70s and 80s, whose influence has survived coalition after coalition with remarkably little accountability. His election signals that a growing share of Nepali voters, particularly younger ones, are no longer willing to accept political recycling as a governing philosophy.

War in Iran and Afghanistan Threatens Central Asia’s Gateway to Global Markets

James Durso

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The U.S.–Israel attacks on Iran and the Afghanistan–Pakistan conflict threaten Central Asia’s plans to establish southbound trade routes to markets in Asia and Africa.

Military escalation between Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government and Pakistan threatens several emerging trade, transport, and energy corridors linking Central Asia to South Asia, the Persian Gulf, and global markets. Risks are both direct (insecurity along routes) and indirect (border closures, investor withdrawal, and partner-state reluctance).

Pakistan previously moved goods through Afghanistan to Central Asian markets, accounting for significant export volumes (bilateral trade was USD2.4 billion in 2025). That corridor is effectively closed, with border crossings, supply chains, and customs operations stalled. The loss of reliable land access undermines Afghanistan’s (food, fuel, industrial inputs) and Central Asian access southward toward Pakistan’s seaports.

New PRC Cybercrime Law Heralds Digital Iron Curtain

Youlun Nie

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Digital governance in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is poised to enter a new phase. On January 31, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) released the Cybercrime Prevention and Control Law (Draft) (网络犯罪防治法 (征求意见稿)) for public comment (MPS, January 31). [1] Recognizing that technical blockades are no longer sufficient, Beijing is building a robust legal framework to expand and codify its digital control apparatus. For over two decades, the Great Firewall (GFW)—an umbrella term for the PRC’s Internet censorship systems—has served as the primary instrument of digital control. [2] The draft law shifts the regulatory focus from technical censorship operations to substantive legal sanctions.

According to the “explanation” (说明) that accompanied the MPS’s draft law, the rapid development of the Internet has facilitated the migration of traditional crimes online, forming “massive and deeply entrenched black and grey industrial chains” (体系庞大、盘根错节的黑灰产业链条) (MPS, January 31). The authorities concede that reactive enforcement for individual cases cannot halt increasing cybercrime. In response, the proposed legislation establishes an operational doctrine based on the principles of “combining crackdowns with prevention, prioritizing prevention, governing the ecology, and collaborative linkage” (坚持“打防结合、防范为先、生态治理、协同联动”的原则).

How the War in Iran Could Help China and Change Asia

Damien Cave, Choe Sang-Hun, Javier C. Hernández and Eric Schmitt

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Before the war with Iran started, American military commanders redirected a carrier strike group from the South China Sea to the Middle East. This week, the Pentagon has been moving sophisticated air defenses from Asia to bolster protection against Iran’s drones and rockets.

The redirected weapons include Patriot missiles and interceptors from the THAAD system in South Korea — the only Asian ally hosting the advanced missile defense system, deployed by the Pentagon to counter North Korea’s growing missile threat. Now, for the first time, its interceptors are being moved away, followed by launchers if the diplomatic and logistical details can be worked out, according to American officials.

The war in Iran — barely two weeks old — is already straining America’s promise of security in a region that U.S. military leaders have called “our priority theater.” Longer term, officials and analysts suggest the war will weaken American influence, aid Chinese arguments about American decline and accelerate a middle-power arms race.

The Chokepoint We Missed: Sulfur, Hormuz, and the Threats to Military Readiness

Morgan Bazilian, Macdonald Amoah and Jahara Matisek

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The cascading effects of disrupted maritime chokepoints are no longer the subject of simulations; they are an active crisis. As the US-Israeli military operation against Iran and Tehran’s regional military response continue, missile attacks, drone swarms, airstrikes, and maritime threats complicate commercial shipping across the region. The ongoing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz affects about 20 percent of global petroleum and 20 percent of liquid natural gas transits. It is also the subject of decades of wargaming for just this occurrence. But a lesser-known chemical also is being halted: 41 percent of global sulfur is exported. While the United States produces significant sulfur domestically, the near-total disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for approximately 50 percent of global seaborne sulfur trade flows, has compounded an already tight market. US sulfur prices have increased 165 percent year-over-year to over $650 per metric ton; and now the price has surged by 25 percent just since the Iran war began. This makes domestic procurement fiercely competitive, while also threatening the import of specific ultra-high-purity grades required for advanced manufacturing. It is squeezing one of the most consequential inputs to modern industrial power.

Supply disruptions matter because the United States consumes about 90 percent of sulfur as sulfuric acid, and sulfuric acid enables production that sustains not only economic function, but also modern warfighting. This is because it is needed for everything from the copper in the American electrical grid to the semiconductors in precision-guided munitions. The effects of the current disruption at Hormuz, therefore, do not stop at the gas pump.

IRAN-US-ISRAEL WAR

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New wave on Tehran. The Israeli military launched what it described as an “extensive wave” of air attacks on Iran’s capital on Friday morning, leaving thick smoke visible across the city. Heavy explosions were reported in several parts of Tehran during a mass Al Quds Day rally, with Iranian state media reporting one woman killed near the demonstration site. Iran’s national security chief Ali Larijani, speaking to Fars News Agency from the rally, called the proximity strike “desperation and fear” from Israel, and said Trump “doesn’t understand that the Iranian nation is strong, determined, and resilient.”

God's War: How Netanyahu's Amalek Doctrine Captured the American Military Machine

FrameTheGlobe

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The school was called Shajareh Tayyebeh. The Good Tree. It was painted with pink flowers and green leaves on its exterior walls, a two-storey building in the southern Iranian city of Minab where girls aged seven to twelve arrived on the morning of February 28, 2026, the first day of their school week. The US-Israeli strikes on Iran had begun hours earlier. Parents received panicked calls and text messages. Get here. Come now. There was not enough time. A Tomahawk cruise missile, manufactured by Raytheon and held by no other participant in this conflict, struck the school at 10:45 in the morning. The roof collapsed on the children. According to Iranian authorities, 165 people were killed, most of them schoolgirls. Iranian state media put the figure at 180. Bellingcat and BBC Verify geolocated footage of the missile striking the area. Eight munitions experts confirmed to the Washington Post that it was a Tomahawk. US Central Command, according to CNN’s reporting, used target coordinates derived from intelligence that had not been updated since 2013, a year when the building was still part of an IRGC compound. By 2016, a fence had separated the school from the base. By 2017, a football pitch had been marked out in the school courtyard. The satellite imagery was there. No one looked.

The war of signals: How Russia and China help Iran see the battlefield

Jasim Al-Azzawi

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When three senior American officials told The Washington Post that Russia was providing Iran with sensitive intelligence, including the precise locations of US warships and aircraft operating across the Middle East, they revealed more than a tactical alliance. They exposed the architecture of a new kind of war. A war without front lines. A war fought not with tanks or missiles, but with radar beams, satellite feeds and encrypted coordinates. In the Gulf today, the battlefield is the electromagnetic spectrum, and both sides are fighting, above all else, to blind the other.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly denied that Moscow was sharing such intelligence with Iran during a call with US President Donald Trump. The denial, however, changes little. Russia has received Iranian drones and munitions for its war in Ukraine. It has watched the US supply Ukraine with targeting intelligence used to strike Russian positions, including, reportedly, locations near Putin’s residences. Moscow’s calculus is not hard to read. Intelligence is a currency. Putin is simply spending it.

What role has cyber warfare played in Iran?

Joe Tidy

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When it comes to military firepower, the US and Israel are not shy about how they are attacking Iran.

With professional photos and slick videos, US Central Command has been posting every few hours on social media about the kinds of weapons, jets and ships being used.

But the US and Israel are far more coy on what is happening in cyber-space.

Over hours of press conferences, speeches and dozens of social media posts, mentions of cyber operations are vanishingly rare.

However, Iranian hackers have claimed their first prominent cyber-attack on a US company during the conflict, on US medical tech firm, Stryker.

And cyber is indeed playing a significant role in this war, as commander of the US Central Command Admiral Brad Cooper recently hinted in a press update.

How Trump and His Advisers Miscalculated Iran’s Response to War

Mark Mazzetti, Tyler Pager and Edward Wong

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On Feb. 18, as President Trump weighed whether to launch military attacks on Iran, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, told an interviewer he was not concerned that the looming war might disrupt oil supplies in the Middle East and wreak havoc in energy markets.

Even during the Israeli and U.S. strikes against Iran last June, Mr. Wright said, there had been little disruption in the markets. “Oil prices blipped up and then went back down,” he said. Some of Mr. Trump’s other advisers shared similar views in private, dismissing warnings that — the second time around — Iran might wage economic warfare by closing shipping lanes carrying roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply.

The extent of that miscalculation was laid bare in recent days, as Iran threatened to fire at commercial oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic choke point through which all ships must pass on their way out of the Persian Gulf. In response to the Iranian threats, commercial shipping has come to a standstill in the Gulf, oil prices have spiked, and the Trump administration has scrambled to find ways to tamp down an economic crisis that has triggered higher gasoline prices for Americans.

Why the US and Iran are fighting two different wars

Stephen Collinson

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President Donald Trump’s top aides are already scripting a victory narrative in Iran for the inevitable day when he tries to extricate himself from the war.

The White House is conjuring a surreal endgame scenario that he will personally certify an unconditional surrender by the Islamic Republic — even if it’s not true.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says only Trump can judge whether the war is at “the beginning, the middle or the end.” It’s as if his boss is the sole arbiter of reality amid a raging regional conflagration.

Iran’s revolutionary leaders are unlikely to cooperate since Trump’s choreography will clash with their core objective in an existential fight: outlasting Americans’ tolerance for a new foreign war.

Why Coercion Failed in Iran

Siamak Naficy

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Recent confrontations between the United States and Iran have often been framed as a contest of resolve in which sufficient pressure could force Tehran to capitulate. Yet this assumption rests on a fundamental misreading of the political system policymakers sought to influence. Rather than confronting a problem susceptible to decisive solutions, American leaders were engaging with what policy scholars describe as a wicked problem: a complex political system whose dynamics resist simple intervention.

The history of U.S.–Iran relations illustrates the dangers of approaching such problems through coercion. Policies intended to impose decisive outcomes frequently generate unintended consequences that deepen rather than resolve the conflict. Intelligence analysts long ago developed a term for this dynamic: blowback.

The concept first appeared in the Central Intelligence Agency’s internal history of the 1953 Iranian coup d’état that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. What appeared at the time to be a decisive solution to a geopolitical problem instead generated a deeper and more enduring conflict. The covert intervention strengthened authoritarian rule under the Shah while embedding a powerful narrative of foreign manipulation in Iranian political memory. Decades later, the consequences of that intervention continue to shape Iranian perceptions of American power.

Oil Shocks And Crashes: Where Are We Headed With The 2026 Crisis?

Professor Peter Newman AO and Professor Ray Wills

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On March 9, oil prices crossed US$ 100 a barrel for the first time in almost four years as the war in the Middle East between the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other continued to escalate with no immediate end in sight.

Oil price shocks triggered by conflict in the Middle East have historically reshaped global energy systems. But the latest tensions around the Strait of Hormuz are unlikely to produce a long-term return to high oil prices.

The first oil crisis in 1973 shaped the lives of baby-boomers. The price of oil quadrupled overnight as Arab oil exporters targeted Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA. The second oil crisis, in 1979, followed the Iranian Revolution and panic buying set in as the oil price shot up. Then the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war reduced global oil supply even further, so the price rose dramatically right through the 1980s.

Iran’s Real War Is Against the Global Economy

Navin Girishankar

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Iran may be losing the military contest with the United States. But it is fighting a different war—one aimed at the global economy.

Over the past 12 days, the United States has demonstrated clear military superiority. Iran’s navy has been severely degraded, with more than 50 ships sunk or damaged; its retaliatory missile launches are down more than 90 percent; and its air force has been grounded. On the battlefield, the scorecard favors Washington, despite risks of escalation.

Strategically, the picture is far less certain. Even as the Trump administration struggles to define its objectives—be it decapitating Iranian leadership, destroying Iran’s nuclear capability, or pursuing regime change—it must confront a new reality.

The United States and Israel are fighting the Islamic Republic. Iran is fighting the global economy.

The Strait of Hormuz: A U.S.-Iran Maritime Flash Point

Mariel Ferragamo

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The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has ignited a regional conflict that is strangling shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—the choke point for nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply—and roiling energy markets.

After Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a strike on February 28, Tehran retaliated by attacking U.S. military bases across the region and threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a twenty-one-mile-wide waterway that abuts southern Iran at its narrowest point. At least three ships were targeted in the strait the day after the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes, and in the days that followed, the United States and Iran have continued to attack each others’ maritime infrastructure. Gulf countries, which rely on unimpeded travel through the strait to access global oil markets, now face shipping disruptions. Ship trafficking data showed a 70 percent drop in vessels traversing the strait after the launch of Operation Epic Fury.

U.S.-Iran tensions had been escalating for weeks, as efforts to reach a new nuclear deal were unsuccessful. Tensions spiked when Iran temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz to conduct live fire drills while Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi participated in nuclear talks with the United States, raising concerns that Iran could use the strait to stymie global oil supplies in response to U.S. aggression.

Big Tech backs Anthropic in fight against Trump administration

Kali Hays

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A slew of America's biggest tech companies have swung behind Anthropic in its lawsuit against leaders in the Trump Administration.

Since Monday, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have publicly supported Anthropic's legal action to overturn Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's unprecedented decision to label it a "supply chain risk".

In legal filings, the tech giants expressed concerns about the government's retaliation against Anthropic after it refused to let its tools be used in mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.

The government's behaviour could cause "broad negative ramifications for the entire technology sector", Microsoft warned.

Microsoft, which works extensively with the US government and the Department of Defense (DoD), said it agrees with Anthropic that AI tools "should not be used to conduct domestic mass surveillance or put the country in a position where autonomous machines could independently start a war".

How Russia Leveraged Asian Partnerships in the Ukraine War

Tahir Azad

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Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made Europe’s eastern flank the main battleground for modern great-power politics. However, the war’s infrastructure has become more Eurasian than just European. As NATO countries increased their military, intelligence, training, and financial support for Ukraine, Moscow responded by expanding its strategic depth to the east and south. It did this by using partnerships with Asian countries to make up for losses on the battlefield, restock its supplies, stabilize its revenue streams, and make its war economy more resistant to sanctions. This was not an “alliance system” in the way that people thought of it during the Cold War. It looked like a flexible, uneven, and often deniable ecosystem of state ties, business connections, and military-technical exchanges.

The core idea is simple: Western support made it more expensive for Russia to be aggressive, but it also gave third parties, especially those who were sanctioned, strategically non-aligned, or revisionist, reasons to work more closely with Moscow. North Korea’s weapons and troops, Iran’s drone and missile transfers, and China’s role as an economic and dual-use “backbone” all helped Russia stay connected and keep its operations going. At the same time, major Asian energy importers, especially India and China, helped keep Russia’s economy strong by buying oil and doing shipping and financial workarounds – like the “shadow fleet” – even as sanctions got stricter.

Russia’s Middle East Role Below Putin’s Ambitions

Anna J. Davis

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to claim a relevant role in the Middle East while being largely ignored and pushed aside by major actors, including the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Putin told U.S. President Donald Trump during a phone call on March 9 that Russia wants to “be helpful” in the Middle East. Trump replied that Putin could be more helpful by meaningfully engaging in efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine (The White House, March 10). The Kremlin has not budged on its demands for full control of Ukrainian territory that it illegally annexed in 2022, yet it continues to blame Kyiv for stalling progress in talks (see EDM, February 24; President of Russia, March 9). Meanwhile, the PRC has already begun mediation efforts in the Middle East with no public recognition of the Kremlin’s stated desire to do the same (PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, March 10). Putin is failing to recognize that Russia’s role is irrelevant and unwanted in the Middle East right now and that he is being pushed aside as a result.

The Global Economic Slowdown And China In The Era Of De-Globalization

Yang Xite

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China’s economic growth has transitioned from the double-digit high-speed expansion of the past to a gradual deceleration of around 5%. This shift has sparked significant attention and debate both within the country itself and internationally. The decision to modestly lower the annual GDP growth target during China’s 2026 Two Sessions, its annual plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress and of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, reflects a policy acknowledgment and adaptation to the new realities of the global economy under the pressures of de-globalization. ANBOUND’s founder Kung Chan suggested that observing this phenomenon requires a more comprehensive perspective. A fundamental evaluation is that the current economic downturn is not unique to China. Instead, it is a challenge shared by the entire world.

Why, then, is the global economy weakening collectively? To understand this, one must clarify the underlying logic to see the true picture. The key lies in “de-globalization”. ANBOUND has conducted research on this topic for nearly a decade, initially approaching it through the “New Space Theory” and observing a “fragmentation” of global space. While globalization seeks a unified market and relies on international agreements, multinational corporations, and organizations to integrate the world, de-globalization does the opposite. It carves the market space from a whole into regional or even national units. This can be viewed as a global-scale “balance sheet contraction”.

These are Ukraine’s $1,000 interceptor drones the Pentagon wants to buy

Katie Livingstone

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine warned allied governments for years to prepare for a new kind of war, one in which cheap, mass-produced drones would overwhelm both the tactics and economics of traditional air defense.

“You don’t have time,” Andrii Hrytseniuk, the CEO of Brave1, recalled telling officials in recent years. “Shahed [drones] will come not only to Ukraine, but to other countries. You need to use your time not to stick to previous conventional warfare, but to work on the new era.”

Brave1 was established in 2023 as Ukraine’s state-backed defense innovation hub, which funds, tests, and fast-tracks new military technology from hundreds of Ukrainian startups.

Three years after Brave1’s formation, the Iran war has made Hrytseniuk’s warning prescient.

In the first week alone, the U.S. and Israel struck more than 3,000 targets across Iran while Tehran fired over 500 ballistic missiles and nearly 2,000 drones at U.S. bases and Israeli cities across 12 countries, burning through over 800 Patriot interceptor missiles in three days — more than Ukraine received from allies throughout four years of war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed out on Thursday.

A warning for the AI era: Why America's energy infrastructure isn't ready for what's coming

Rob Jordan

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As tech giants race to power AI data centers and extreme weather becomes more frequent, America's electrical grid is straining under conditions it was not built to handle. Alice Hill, senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, has a message for business leaders and policymakers: prepare now.

“We need to stop treating rapid grid expansion and resilience needs as competing priorities, Hill said. “Resilience is growth policy.”

The Iran War Is Breaking Global Humanitarian Aid Efforts

Sam Vigersky

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U.S.-Israeli attacks have temporarily displaced up to 3.2 million people within Iran since the start of the conflict. In Lebanon, where more than three hundred thousand people are stranded without homes, displacement shelters are overflowing as waves of families flee for safety. In conflict zones like Sudan and Myanmar, oil market shocks caused by the ongoing military campaign in Iran are driving up the costs of humanitarian programs that provide food, water, medicine, and shelter—all while containers packed with life-saving aid sit untouched in Dubai.

As war continues to escalate across the Middle East, the humanitarian consequences—direct and cascading—are only just beginning to come into focus. For aid workers who are already underfunded and under threat, one question looms: how much worse will it get?

We Should Learn From the Present War, the Chinese Will

Gary Anderson

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Other than tactical events, the first week of Operation Epic Fury has some potential revelations that will likely be overlooked by casual observers of the conflict. These are the sinking of an Iranian warship in international waters by an American submarine and the enormous use of precision weapons and drones by the United States. Both have implications for our country in deterring and conducting a war with China. There is no doubt in my mind that the Chinese are noting this, and American citizens should as well. (RELATED: Broadly Speaking, the Iran War Is About China)

Many international observers were horrified that the Americans would sink a hostile naval combatant outside the recognized naval war zone around the Persian Gulf. This is probably the best move that the U.S. administration has made in the entire war because it signifies that Americans are willing to wage war worldwide rather than arbitrarily limiting themselves to a single tactical area as we did in Vietnam. This signals to China that a future conflict with the United States over a local issue such as Taiwan will not be limited to the South China Sea (SCS), but could impact its interests worldwide. (RELATED: The Clash of Civilizations: 30 Years On)

Report to Congress on U.S. Military Operations Against Iran’s Missile, Nuclear Programs

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On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran. The same day, President Donald Trump listed among the operation’s objectives preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, destroying Iran’s missiles, and “[razing] their missile industry to the ground.” Some Members of Congress have questioned the U.S. military operations in Iran given President Trump’s previous comments that, as a result of the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strikes, “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” Other Members have supported the President’s action, citing Iran’s efforts to reconstitute its nuclear program and its ballistic missile capabilities.

Shared Understanding at Machine Speed: Preserving Coherence in AI-Enabled Joint Operations

Richard L. Farnell

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In January 1991, coalition forces dismantled Iraq’s command-and-control network with remarkable speed. That success did not rest on a single breakthrough technology or superior platforms. It rested on something more decisive: shared understanding across organizations, functions, and national boundaries. Leaders and staffs had unified mental models—rooted in doctrine, institutional experience, and an understanding of the problem—enabling disciplined initiative and decentralized execution without constant coordination. The result was operational coherence at speed.

Three decades later, leaders must figure out how to maintain shared understanding as artificial intelligence reshapes how organizations sense, decide, and act in a joint operation. AI accelerates collection, analysis, and dissemination of information. But as the joint force integrates AI tools and seeks to leverage these unprecedented advantages, the goal is not solely about adoption, but rather ensuring that speed produces coherent action rather than divergence. Data flows continuously. Decisions are pushed closer to the tactical edge. Yet research and operational experience suggest that speed alone does not improve outcomes. AI can accelerate error, amplify disagreement, and reinforce misalignment when trust in the machine outpaces shared understanding among human decision-makers. Therefore, leaders must govern these processes and provide frameworks for their staffs to keep shared understanding intact while moving at machine speed.

What is the 'FlyTrap' Method, and How Can It Disable Autonomous AI Drones?

Nick Mordowanec

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Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, said they have discovered a critical security vulnerability in autonomous target-tracking drones claimed to have far-reaching implications for public safety, border security and personal privacy.

That vulnerability is exploited by what they described as the “FlyTrap” method, which employs a physical attack framework that exploits deficiencies in camera-based, autonomous target-tracking technology that enables drones to follow selected targets without being directly controlled by humans. These “active track” or “dynamic track” models in the consumer world are AI-powered and used by local and federal law enforcement to track illegal border crossings, conduct surveillance for security purposes, or for other routine operations.

‘Simple plans, violently executed’: One Army unit’s old-school counter to high-tech chaos

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.

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WASHINGTON — As high tech proliferates on battlefields from Iran to Ukraine, and the Pentagon wrangles with frontier AI firms, one unique Army unit has embraced the virtues of simplicity.

Drones, electronic warfare, and even artificial intelligence are all valuable tools, officers from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment told Breaking Defense. But the organizations, plans, and processes that wield those tools need to be as simple and robust as possible, they warned, or else it’ll all fall apart under the stress of combat.

“Tech, as it advances, has certainly been a boon,” said Capt. Jake Thomas, an infantryman by training, who’s now in charge of the regiment’s electronic and information warfare assets. But the danger, he told Breaking Defense, is overloading soldiers with more bells, whistles, and information than ordinary human minds can manage.

Human-in-the-Loop or Loophole? Targeting AI and Legal Accountability

Khyati Singh

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There is no doubt that incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) within the targeting cycle has its operational advantages. During a complex urban scenario, the AI-driven decision-support systems (AI-DSS) has the potential to rapidly synthesize incredible volumes of data received from diverse ISR, signals intelligence, and other feeds, at a velocity no human could match. In theory, this innovation would sharpen a commander’s situational awareness, more accurately ascertain military objectives, and model collateral damage with newfound precision.

The objective is to achieve a “cleaner” battlefield that features faster and more accurate targeting with lower collateral damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure. This integration of AI-driven systems is increasingly viewed as a mechanism to fulfill the core mandates of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). By providing commanders with more granular data and precise modeling, these tools are designed to facilitate the principle of distinction, which requires parties to target only military objectives and combatants. Furthermore, the speed and accuracy of such systems are intended to support the principle of proportionality, assisting decision-makers in ensuring that an attack’s collateral impact does not outweigh its intended military necessity. This promise of a more accurate and automated targeting system is desirable within the operational limits of IHL regarding the principles of distinction (between combatants and civilians) and proportionality (not excessive attack).

Transforming in Contact: The Army is Changing—Because It Must

W. Scott Pinkstaff and John Nagl

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While the character of war constantly changes, its nature does not. Violence, uncertainty and the human cost of war remain constant. However, who we expect to fight, where we expect to fight, and the pace of war at which we expect to fight have changed dramatically.

For the last 20 years, America fought wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan. We enjoyed air supremacy, uncontested logistics and secure bases. Most of all, we had time to conduct war at the pace we wanted to fight. That era is over.

After decades of counterinsurgency against terrorist groups in the Middle East, great power competition has reemerged as our primary threat and the principal driver of American strategy. Russia’s war in Ukraine exposed old assumptions. China has been deliberately building its military forces while we were focused on counterinsurgency. The uncomfortable reality is this: The United States no longer has the luxury of fighting slow wars with guaranteed dominance.