Archive
- Middle East & North Africa
U.S. and Israeli Checks and Balances Collapsed During the Iran War
One of the hallmarks and indeed strengths of democracies is their checks and balances – their ability to ensure that no single branch oversteps its authority or unilaterally…
July 20, 2026
- Environment and Biosecurity
The Pipeline That Fuels Myanmar’s War
An oil and gas pipeline owned by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a strategic focal point in Myanmar’s ongoing civil war. The PRC built a natural gas pipeline from the…
July 12, 2026
- Technology
One Small Step for Mankind: Cislunar Space as a Region of Strategic Competition and the Need for Strategic Coherence
The quest to return to the lunar surface has seen the development of a new region of strategic competition: cislunar space. The region, largely devoid of satellites and over 1…
July 5, 2026
- Technology
David vs. Goliath: How Emerging Technology Allows Small Powers to Effectively Combat Great Powers
High Cost ≠ High Quality The Iranian Shahed-136 drone, a one-way attack drone, costs between $20-50,000. The cost of one Patriot interceptor, used by the United States, costs $4…
July 5, 2026
- East Asia & Indo-Pacific
- Technology
Golden Dome and a New Kind of Nuclear Arms Race
Nuclear arms control is comatose. The United States and Russia allowed New START to expire in February, ending the last vestige of formal restraint on deployed nuclear arsenals.…
July 2, 2026
- Middle East & North Africa
Lessons from Idlib: The Syrian Civil War and Iran’s Missing Opposition
The Sound of Silence: The Absence of Iranian Opposition Groups Operation Epic Fury, coming on the heels of Iran’s largest public uprising since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has…
June 9, 2026
- Terrorism & Transnational Threats
Europe’s Opportunity to Counter Russian Influence in the Sahel
As Russia repositions itself on the world stage and the Ukraine War continues, Moscow has found key allies in the new military governments of the Sahel states of Mali, Niger, and…
June 4, 2026
- The Americas
Adaptive Networks: Why Supply-Side Enforcement Cannot Stop Fentanyl
The Trump administration has made countering fentanyl a core tenet of its national security policy. In January 2025, President Trump signed a day-one executive order designating…
May 16, 2026
- Middle East & North Africa
Blind to the Berm: Western Sahara, Morocco, and the World’s Quiet Abandonment of Self-Determination
In January 1981, Morocco began constructing what the Sahrawi people would call the “Wall of Shame.” The Moroccan Western Sahara Wall now stands as both the longest operational…
May 14, 2026
- Geoeconomics & Resource Competition
Subduing the Enemy Without Fighting: Sanctions and the Limits of Financial Network Power
The power of modern sanctions rests on the uneven structure of global financial networks. A small number of states sit at the financial and technological nexus of the global…
May 6, 2026