​Quotes of the day:

"The day knowledge was preferred to wisdom and mere usefulness to beauty. . . . Only a moral revolution -- not a social or a political revolution -- only a moral revolution would lead man back to his lost truth."

– Simone de Beauvoir

“Therefore the first progressive step for a mind overwhelmed by the strangeness of things is to realize that this feeling of strangeness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe. The malady experienced by a single man becomes a mass plague. In our daily trials rebellion plays the same role as does the "cogito" in the realm of thought: it is the first piece of evidence. But this evidence lures the individual from his solitude. It founds its first value on the whole human race. I rebel—therefore we exist.”

– Albert Camus, The Rebel

"If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." 

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. Making the War Colleges Great Again

2. George Washington by George W. Bush

3. Beyond COIN: Governance Warfare and the Changing Character of Irregular Conflict

4. China is the real threat, Taiwan says in rebuff to Munich speech

5. Japan protests China comments on reviving 'militarism'

6. Iran Pitches New Ideas in Nuclear Talks—but Not the One That Matters to Trump

7. Popular anger burns in Iran after crackdown, as Trump turns up pressure

8. AI Defense Startup Breaker Raises $6 Million in Seed Funding

9. Xi’s new year message to military reveals PLA Cyberspace Force post in South China Sea

10. The Newest Old Tech in Warfare: Balloons

11. The Silence at the Pentagon

12. Report exposes 2,300 CCP-linked groups infiltrating western democracies

13. Chemical Weapons by Violent Non-State Actors in Combat

14. AI-Intelligentized Naval Mines and U.S. Subsea Access in the Paracel Islands

15. Recalibrating U.S. Intelligence Strategy for an Uncertain Global Order

16. Panama’s Hidden Chokepoint: Tocumen and the Convergence of Mobility Power

17. The Modern King of Battle: Creating the Army’s Integrated Fires Complex

18. The Back Brief: 'Bodyguard of Lies' — A tragic tale of hubris and missed opportunities

19. Marking Losar, the Tibetan New Year

20. 

1. Making the War Colleges Great Again

​Comment: Let me just say this to the good retired colonel, I do not think you get it. You need to understand what our adversaries believe. They follow Mao's dictum: "War is politics with bloodshed and politics is war without bloodshed." I think you are conflating your partisan political view with a misunderstanding of politics and war. 

Okay but you have got me on this one: 

Think about all of our strategic failures of the past 25 years. We never lost a tactical battle, but we lost strategically in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those strategies? They were created by War College graduates.

Shades of Colonel Summers. We have to take our lumps on that one.

It is too bad this is such a screed as there may be a good point or two worth noting, e.g., point number 7 for sure and perhaps point number 9. But his criticisms do not match my experience as either a student or faculty member at the National War College. I can tell you when we took 15 students to China we did not even we did not look at climate change at all. Only warfighting (PLA 6th Armored Bde, 2d Fleet at Qingdao, Kunming Military Academy etc) and strategic issues with counterparts at their National Defense University, etc. His or her assessment of the facility, military and civilian, is off base and ill informed. I am not aware of tenure for civilian faculty. I believe all are hired on a 3 year renewable contract but they did not have tenure though that may differ among services and institutions. I am not sure how many War College professors have used their service as stepping stones to "the Ivies." I am not sure how many permanent military faculty there are (again it may differ by institution and service but I certainly do not know of any permanent military faculty at National). I think he or she may be confusing permanent military faculty at the Service Academies with the War Colleges. I could go on with his ill informed view of DIME-FIL as well as the importance of having interagency students in the classes (especially at National) but you can make your own assessment. 

I do wonder why he or she had to use a pseudonym? I also wonder when he received his law degree, during or after his service? Perhaps a characterization of his service would allow for a better assessment of his viewpoints. Where you stand depends on where you sit.

Making the War Colleges Great Again

If America’s War Colleges teach politics instead of war, strategic failure is inevitable; restore warriors, not bureaucrats, and make winning—not credentials—the mission.

By Cynical Publius

February 16, 2026

https://amgreatness.com/2026/02/16/making-the-war-colleges-great-again/

As President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth work to restore the focus of America’s military on lethality and warfighting, one of their major tasks has been to reform the institutions that train our military leaders. In recent news, Secretary Hegseth has decreed that military officers may no longer attend fellowships or government-sponsored degree programs at Harvard University, and he is apparently looking to expand that ban list beyond Harvard into colleges and universities nationwide that teach the desirability of toxic policies such as Marxism, DEI, and the myth of anthropogenic climate change. The rationale here is simple. America’s military exists to close with and destroy our nation’s enemies, and for no other reason. The toxic brew of politicized beliefs taught at the Ivy League institutions of 2026 detracts from and degrades that military mission, and they cannot be tolerated in uniform.

That’s a great start, but there is much more to do on this front. Perhaps no task is more important in this vein than reforming the military’s Senior Service Colleges (also known as War Colleges). Our War Colleges have lost their way, as they each strive to be a sort of government-run Ivy League university instead of a training ground for lethal strategic warfighters. As a graduate of one of those War Colleges, I cannot emphasize enough just how important reform of these vital institutions is to our nation’s defense.

For the uninitiated, there are six War Colleges. They are: (i) the National War College (Fort McNair, Washington, DC); (ii) the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security & Resource Strategy (Fort McNair, Washington, DC); (iii) the Army War College (Carlisle Barracks, PA); (iv) the Naval War College (Newport, RI); (v) the Air War College (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL); and (vi) the Marine Corps War College (Quantico, VA). These War Colleges serve to train America’s senior military leaders to assume future positions of strategic importance.

The students are generally promotable lieutenant colonels (or promotable Navy and Coast Guard commanders) or full colonels (or Navy and Coast Guard captains). The schools also admit senior civilians from across the federal government. The National War College and the Eisenhower School are both “joint” schools (i.e., students are from all military services), and the other colleges are service-specific, although they too admit a number of students from the other military services. The War Colleges also admit students from allied foreign militaries.

For a career military officer, selection for attendance at a War College is a significant milestone, as graduates of these schools tend to attain positions of great responsibility, all the way up to the highest, four-star flag ranks. The intent of the War Colleges is to prepare their students for managing national defense at the strategic level. As an example, the mission statement of the National War College reads as follows:

“The National War College mission is to educate joint, interagency, and international leaders and warfighters by conducting a senior-level course of study in national security strategy, preparing graduates to function at the highest levels of strategic leadership in a complex, competitive, and rapidly evolving strategic environment.”

Sounds about right, doesn’t it? We want our senior military leaders to be well-trained on the strategic aspects of national security, right? The problem is that while the school’s name and the description of its students include the word “war,” the description of the mission itself does not. That is the problem.

In my experience as a War College graduate, and in the experience of so many other graduates I know, the War Colleges’ primary purpose seems to consist of seeing just how closely they can resemble civilian Ivy League universities, and the curriculum is skewed to the sorts of globalist, neo-Marxist, woke doctrines that infest political science and economics programs in those Ivies. Don’t believe me? My War College sent eleven of my colleagues and me to China for two weeks to study the effects of climate change (all the while accompanied by minders from the Chinese Communist Party). It was an interesting trip and a great life memory, but it had very little to do with my military career mission of fighting wars.

Despite right-sounding descriptions in course catalogs, the curricula of the War Colleges seem to focus on training military officers to think like politicians, State Department employees, and military contractors. We have enough of those already, and what we need are military officers who are so thoroughly trained in the strategic components of the art of war that they are willing to boldly speak up to their political leadership and say necessary things like, “No sir, it is impossible to turn the 8th-century culture of Afghanistan into a liberal democracy, no matter how many troops we send.”

Think about all of our strategic failures of the past 25 years. We never lost a tactical battle, but we lost strategically in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those strategies? They were created by War College graduates.

Something needs to change. Warfighting must become the unambiguous focus of what is taught.

With that in mind, I have nine recommendations as to how we can best reform these vital military schools (ranked in order of importance):

1. Stop seeking accreditation like civilian universities. Each of the War Colleges is currently accredited to award civilian-recognized master’s degrees. This necessarily means monitoring and approval of curricula by organizations like the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities—the same organizations that set guidelines for civilian universities. That commission includes in its accreditation process a requirement to have “similar characteristics to other higher education institutions.” This means that in order to be accredited, the War Colleges must look and sound like Harvard. This is wrong. To fix the War Colleges, we must stop seeking civilian accreditation. Yes, this will mean the degrees granted by the War Colleges will not be recognized by civilian academia. Good. Civilian degrees have nothing to do with warfighting. (On a related note, an advanced degree should no longer be a criterion for promotion, except for technical specialties like lawyers, doctors, engineers, and the like.) This also means that civilian professors who teach at War Colleges as a stepping stone to teaching at Ivies will no longer be willing to teach there. Double plus good. Our War Colleges are not Ivies. They are schools to teach senior leaders how to better kill the enemy.

2. Stop allowing military students to wear civilian suits as the uniform of the day. This may sound trivial, but as a mindset issue, this one is subtle yet tremendously important. When I attended one of the War Colleges, we were encouraged to wear civilian suits so as to create a more collegial learning environment with civilian instructors and students. War is not collegial. Every day of a military school should include a military uniform, either utilities or service dress. I do not care—but a UNIFORM. The civilian suit madness sends a deep, deep subliminal signal that says, “You are no longer a warrior. You are now a politician, or a civil servant, or a contractor. Welcome to Inside the Beltway.” This is a toxic message that is anathema to warfighting and is a visible signal of so many of the troubles emanating from the War Colleges.

3. Reshape the curriculum so it focuses 75% on the “M” in DIME-FIL. U.S. national security doctrine recognizes the “instruments of national power” as the “DIME-FIL.” These letters stand for Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial, Intelligence, and Law Enforcement, and each of those instruments is how any nation exerts national power. Our War Colleges today seem to think that senior officers already have maxed out their understanding of the “military” instrument, so they focus disproportionately on the other instruments, with the unintended effect of turning out senior military leaders who think like State Department employees. We have enough diplomats—we need more killers. Revamping the War College curricula to serve the military instrument first and foremost is a fundamentally necessary change. Curricula need to build warfighters who think strategically, not uniformed “strategists” who are more concerned with diplomacy than closing with and destroying America’s enemies.

4. Eliminate all curriculum that disguises wokeness as being a military matter. This is related to Point #3 above and is essential to warfighting success. For example, “climate change as a critical element of national security strategy” must be eliminated, and students must no longer be allowed to indulge in such woke fantasies as writing a research paper entitled “Interpreting Bias in Army Talent Management” (admittedly this latter paper is from a lower-ranking military school than a War College, but it is illustrative of a mindset that has infested all advanced military schooling in the U.S.).

5. Fire most civilian faculty. In my experience, the civilian faculties at the War Colleges see their tenure as a stepping stone to a job at prestigious civilian universities. (The worst of this lot are quite literally radicals with a visceral and vocal hatred for the current administration. Consider Tom Nichols, a former Naval War College professor and current professor emeritus, as an excellent example.) As a result, the research they supervise with military students is geared towards appealing to future civilian employers who will see a curriculum vitae that serves woke purposes and not warfighting purposes. Point #1 above will chase away most civilian professors, but we must clean house anyway of all civilian faculty, except those who possess exceptional technical skills, such as engineering, law, medicine, etc., where military instructors may lack sufficient expertise.

6. Stop having permanent military faculty. Many of the military faculty at the War Colleges are long-removed from tactical- or operational-level service and instead have been absorbed into the “wannabe Ivy” ethos of our contemporary War Colleges. Those with such an outlook need to retire.

7. Service as War College faculty should be recognized as a premier military assignment. The best way to train senior military leaders is to have those who have succeeded as senior military leaders as faculty. Right now, that is not an assignment that “fast track” officers seek or admire. We must staff War College faculty with our best warfighters, ones who have had a successful tactical command at the colonel/captain level and are highly likely to become a flag officer. So as not to derail their careers, they should be on one-year tours with a curriculum built so it can be easily taught by someone who is there only for one year.

8. Stop hosting interagency students from the Department of State, Department of Commerce, etc. The War Colleges currently have many civilian students from across the federal government. The ostensible purpose of this is to improve interagency coordination across all federal agencies and to make civilians in other agencies better understand the Department of War. Makes sense, right? However, such practice does not make those civilian employees more like warfighters—instead, it makes uniformed officers more like civilian employees. The civilianization of our uniformed military is a great threat to warfighting ability, and it must end.

9. Ensure that there is a rotating, supervisory board of governors for each War College that consists solely of recently retired, apolitical colonels, captains, and junior flag officers. These officers must have conclusively demonstrated excellence commanding tactical units, must themselves be War College graduates, and must have never once dabbled in civilian politics at any level. Retired senior flag officers should not be allowed to sit on this board, as they are prone to using their former rank for political purposes and likely will approve the status quo.

That’s it: nine ways to improve the training of our senior military leaders so that they are focused on winning wars and are not focused on the domains of civilian leaders. Our senior military ranks need more Spartans and fewer Athenians, and the ideas above can lead to that change. Let’s make our War Colleges great again.

***

Cynical Publius is the nom de plume of a retired U.S. Army colonel and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, who became a practicing corporate law attorney after military retirement. You can follow Cynical Publius on X at @CynicalPublius.

2. George Washington by George W. Bush

Comment: I wish I had seen this sooner yesterday to send it out on Presidents' Day. And this is an intriguing new project. (e.g., In Pursuit is a landmark initiative of More Perfect)

There are leadership and history lessons for all of us to include all the way to his biography where he notes he served as the 43d President of the United States (rather than stating he was the 43d President) which I believe he deliberately meant to emphasize that it was service to our nation. 

George Washington by George W. Bush

For a Leader, Humility Is the Ultimate Strength

In Pursuit and George W. Bush

Feb 16, 2026

https://inpursuit.substack.com/p/george-washington-by-george-w-bush

As America begins to celebrate our 250^th anniversary, I’m pleased to have been asked to write about George Washington’s leadership. As president, I found great comfort and inspiration in reading about my predecessors and the qualities they embodied. Abraham Lincoln’s resolve, Harry Truman’s decisiveness, Ronald Reagan’s optimism, and others reminded me of the challenges America has faced – and of the values that have helped us overcome them.

Few qualities have inspired me more than Washington’s humility. I have studied the corrupting nature of power, and how retaining power for power’s sake has infected politics for generations. Our first president could have remained all-powerful, but twice he chose not to. In so doing, he set a standard for all presidents to live up to. His life, with all its flaws and achievements, should be studied by all who aspire to leadership. George Washington’s humility in giving up power willingly remains among the most consequential decisions and important examples in American politics.

After leading the United States to victory over Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, George Washington was at the height of his power. Some suggested that he should become king. Instead, General Washington resigned his military commission in 1783. When King George III of Great Britain learned of his vanquisher’s intentions, he reportedly said, “If He did, He will be the greatest man in the world.” What Washington did on that cold December afternoon in Annapolis shaped the foundation and future of American democracy. And he was just getting started.

John Trumbull, General George Washington Resigning His Commission (1824) United States Capitol

Washington’s path to greatness wasn’t always easy. His father died when he was 11. Rather than receiving a classical education in London like his older half-brothers, young George had to help his mother on Ferry Farm, where he learned the value of hard work. His father’s death and his own lack of education bred an insecurity. That insecurity, in turn, led to an insatiable hunger for knowledge. Largely self-taught, he became a voracious reader.

As a boy, he schooled himself in the “gentlemanly arts” by copying the 110 maxims from Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, which shaped his character for the rest of his life. Many of the qualities that came to be associated with Washington’s leadership, from self-control and courteousness to modesty and diplomacy, can be traced to that short book on manners.

When he was 20, Washington’s interests shifted from the field of surveying to the field of battle. He started his military career as a young officer in the Virginia militia. During a single battle in the French and Indian War, four musket balls ripped through his coat, and his horse was shot out from under him. He never received a commission in the British army.

As the American commander of the Continental Army for more than eight years, Washington’s humility led him to listen, a very different style from British leadership. As Washington wrote to Major General Stirling, “a people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.” Washington listened and learned not just from top military brass but from his soldiers down the ranks, in one case asking their advice on where to advance next after crossing the Delaware River and taking Trenton, New Jersey.

Subsequent leaders learned from that lesson, including Abraham Lincoln, who made sure to listen to privates as much as generals. Despite commanding badly outmanned soldiers and losing more battles than he won, America under Washington’s leadership emerged victorious in a war that changed the trajectory of world history. With Washington, character was key – in this case his humility, perseverance despite difficult odds, indomitable will, and the loyalty he inspired in others.

In early 1783, that loyalty would be tested. His men were tired, homesick, and angry about unpaid wages. Their frustration with the Continental Congress was boiling over, and there was talk of mutiny among the officers. On March 15, in a speech to the troops, Washington spoke about their common cause, their duty to each other, and the righteousness of their mission. He also stressed his personal bond with them, refusing to elevate himself above his men.

Before he made history, Washington had studied it. He was especially drawn to Roman leaders and generals wary of power. So like Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who retired to his farm after saving Rome in battle, Washington returned to Mount Vernon after winning the war. It was the place that centered him, provided him with happiness, and enabled him to spend time with his beloved wife, Martha. But before long, duty once again summoned him.

The young republic was in crisis. The Articles of Confederation were failing, with the federal government virtually powerless. In 1787 Washington was called back to public life, where he presided over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He was asked to serve because he was a national hero and a unifying figure, trusted by all, and unmatched in his ability to forge consensus. He could be given power because of his character; because everyone knew he would not abuse power.

Out of the Convention emerged a new Constitution and a new office, the presidency. Washington was the obvious choice and twice was unanimously elected – the only president so elected in American history. He accepted the presidency because the office needed him, not because he needed the office.

Gilbert Stuart, George Washington (1795), National Gallery of Art

Our first president stabilized the economy and the nation’s finances, asserted the authority of the federal government, and secured passage of the Bill of Rights. He kept America out of the French Revolutionary wars, successfully put down an insurrection in western Pennsylvania, and assembled and skillfully managed a cabinet of brilliant but contentious individuals. He delivered a foundational message on religious tolerance to the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island. He signed legislation to create the nation’s court system and first executive departments.

The question we must all ask is, how did he accomplish these things? By most historian accounts, one of the reasons Washington achieved all of this was by admitting he might not be up to the task. He summoned experts and let debates play out in front of him. For me, that lesson meant recognizing what I didn’t know as President, surrounding myself with advisors who did know what I didn’t know, and listening to them.

Like all presidents, Washington had his faults. He made tactical errors, especially early in his military career. He could be prickly and “naturally irritable,” in the words of Thomas Jefferson. But worst of all, he was – as were so many of his generation – a lifelong slave owner who never publicly condemned the institution. His views evolved over time, expressing private misgivings about slavery later in his life. It’s been said he “made his most public antislavery statement after his death” by freeing the slaves he owned in his will, which is more than most people of his generation did. Still, slavery is a stain on an otherwise sterling private and public life.

But Washington, like all of us, should be taken in the totality of his acts and of his life in his times. By that standard, his life was exceptional. The founding generation considered Washington to be the “indispensable” man. Without him, there would be no America; and without America, the world would be a very different and much darker place.

As Doug Bradburn, President and CEO of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, put it, “His perseverance, steadfast optimism, and ultimately his wisdom drew upon a deep integrity and humility, which over many trials created in him the character of the greatest political leader of the revolutionary age.”

As America’s first president, Washington knew “the first of everything in our situation will serve to establish a precedent.” So after two terms in office, with a distrust of long-seated rulers still fresh on America’s soul, Washington chose not to run again for president. And by once again relinquishing power rather than holding on to it, he ensured America wouldn’t become a monarchy, or worse.

Our first leader helped define not only the character of the presidency but the character of the country. Washington modeled what it means to put the good of the nation over self-interest and selfish ambition. He embodied integrity and modeled why it’s worth aspiring to. And he carried himself with dignity and self-restraint, honoring the office without allowing it to become invested with near-mythical powers.

I often say that the office of the president is more important than the occupant; that the institution of the presidency gives ballast to our ship of state. For that stability we are indebted to the wisdom of our founding fathers’ governing charter and the humility of our nation’s first president. It has guided us for 250 years, and it will strengthen us for our next 250 years.

George W. Bush founded the George W. Bush Presidential Center and served as the 43rd President of the United States.

In Pursuit is a landmark initiative of More Perfect, a bipartisan alliance of 43 Presidential Centers, National Archives Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Karsh Institute for Democracy at the University of Virginia, and more than 100 organizations working together to protect and renew our democracy as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and beyond.

3. Beyond COIN: Governance Warfare and the Changing Character of Irregular Conflict

​Summary:

Erika Lafrennie argues that counterinsurgency still shapes how institutions think about irregular problems, even when COIN is no longer named. This “muscle memory” drives planning templates, resource choices, interagency coordination, and shallow legitimacy work. But today’s decisive contests increasingly operate through institutions, rules, procedures, standards, and legitimacy systems that change slowly and compound effects. The author defines “governance warfare” as systematic shaping of institutional rules and legitimacy pathways for advantage without overt force, and says it is structurally incompatible with COIN’s campaign logic. Current approaches often generate activity without altering trajectory because competitors reshape administrative systems.

Comment: This is a very important essay. COIN is only one part of irregular conflict. And I concur that COIN is the first thing that comes to mind when people think and talk about irregular warfare.

Actually we may need "governance warfare" to battle "grievance warfare." Our adversaries use exaggerated grievance, communicated well" as a strategic line of effort to subvert the US and its friends, partners, and allies. But I digress. 

If planners keep reaching for COIN templates, they will keep producing visible motion that briefs well, while the real leverage shifts in procurement, regulation, licensing, courts, and standards. “Whole-of-government” coordination will keep collapsing into a military process when the military owns tempo and staff capacity, yet that procedural integration will still miss the decisive administrative terrain. Measures of success will stay misleading if they count engagements and training outputs, because as Dr. Lafrennies notes, dependency, procedural credibility, and elite incentive alignment drive outcomes in governance warfare.

If the contested center of gravity is administrative, not operational, who inside the US system should be the integrating authority, and how do we prevent military-led processes from substituting for governance leverage?

What indicators would tell us a partner’s institutions are drifting toward dependency or “standards lock-in,” even while exercises, agreements, and engagement metrics rise?

If legitimacy sits in rule fairness, trusted procedures, and “truth filtering upward,” what actions protect those foundations when competitors work through media ownership, platform regulation, and education content?

Here is a proposal for non-military led irregular warfare (or more appropriately, political warfare).

An American Way of Political Warfare

CharlesT. Cleveland, Ryan C. Crocker, Daniel Egel, AndrewLiepman, David Maxwell

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE300/PE304/RAND_PE304.pdf

Beyond COIN: Governance Warfare and the Changing Character of Irregular Conflict

Why today’s decisive contests are increasingly fought through institutions, not campaigns

Erika Lafrennie

Feb 17, 2026

https://www.xinanigans.com/p/governance-warfare-not-coin-2-0?utm

For more than two decades, counterinsurgency has exerted a gravitational pull on how irregular warfare is understood, debated, and operationalized. Even as doctrine evolves and the language shifts to strategic competition, campaigning, or the “gray zone,” the underlying assumptions that shaped COIN continue to structure how many institutions perceive irregular problems. COIN no longer appears as a named framework. It appears as the default mental posture: the instinctive way planners define the problem, the way staffs organize action, and the way organizations explain legitimacy, integration, and influence.

That persistence reflects professional formation. Many practitioners built their operational identity inside COIN’s logic—its emphasis on population security, governance support, and the idea that integrated civil-military action could reshape outcomes in contested environments. That experience created deep muscle memory: what “success” looks like, what “progress” feels like, and what “good planning” requires.

But the strategic environment has shifted. The contests that increasingly decide advantage operate through institutions, rules, procedures, standards, and legitimacy ecosystems that change slowly and compound effects. Power is exercised through governance and administrative shaping—sometimes quietly, sometimes aggressively, often without the clear signatures of insurgency or occupation. In that environment, COIN’s inherited assumptions generate friction and drift.

Governance warfare is the systematic shaping of institutional rules, procedures, incentives, and legitimacy pathways to produce strategic advantage without relying on overt force. It marks a decisive break with the COIN era and cannot be treated as a renovated version of counterinsurgency. It runs on different terrain, different timelines, and different mechanisms of leverage. When institutions try to retrofit COIN logic to compete in governance space, they produce recognizable patterns: planning that creates activity without advantage, integration that collapses civilian authority into military process, and legitimacy work that stays surface-level while competitors reshape the underlying system.

Treating this clearly requires treating COIN for what it is: a completed operational framework.

COIN as Institutional Muscle Memory

COIN remains embedded in institutions because it was more than a doctrine. It became a professional operating system. Its persistence appears in ways that rarely get labeled “COIN,” yet continue to shape daily work.

Planning architecture defaults to organizing problems around “lines of effort” that mirror COIN-era integration: security, governance, development, information. The template creates coherence and gives diverse actors a shared map. It also encourages familiar sequencing: stabilize, build capacity, strengthen governance, shape perception. That sequencing assumes a contested population under visible threat where security provision unlocks political space.

Resource allocation categories favor activities that look like presence, engagement, and capacity-building. They can be scheduled, measured, staffed, and briefed. They fit into rotational models and programmatic funding. Administrative competition rarely does. It rarely produces quick metrics, rarely conforms to operational cycles, and often requires working inside systems that sit outside military control. When institutions face ambiguity, they lean toward what they can justify in familiar terms.

Interagency mechanics treat “whole-of-government” as an integration ambition managed through coordination. In practice, coordination collapses into military-led process because the military owns the operational tempo, the staff capacity, and the planning discipline. The resulting “integration” becomes a procedural substitute for genuine governance leverage, especially when civilian authorities operate on different timelines, incentives, and legal constraints.

Legitimacy is discussed as something that can be generated through improved service delivery, improved security, and improved messaging—often within the temporal frame of an operation. That framing appears in competition concepts that treat influence as an overlay rather than a system. In governance warfare, legitimacy sits deeper: in whether rules are perceived as fair, whether procedures are trusted, whether institutions filter truth upward, and whether citizens experience governance as coherent.

These inherited reflexes become misaligned when applied to contests decided inside administrative systems.

COIN as a Completed Operational Framework

COIN emerged to solve a specific operational challenge: how a militarily superior force could suppress insurgency and stabilize a population under conditions of contested control. Its organizing assumptions reflected that reality.

Presence created leverage. Security provision enabled political engagement. A contested population could be secured and separated from insurgent influence. Governance support could then consolidate authority. The military served as the primary integrator, synchronizing security, governance assistance, development inputs, and information effects in a bounded battlespace. Progress could be tracked through visible indicators: reduced violence, improved access, improved partner performance, improved stability.

Within those parameters, COIN was coherent. It offered planners a way to link tactical action to political outcomes. It gave commanders a language for legitimacy that could be translated into operational priorities. It created a shared map between military and civilian efforts, even when coordination was imperfect.

COIN’s limitations were boundary conditions. The framework excelled in environments where insurgency was visible, authority was contested locally, and physical security could create meaningful space for governance consolidation. Its logic was precise. Its precision is why it remains so influential. Where insurgency, occupation, and population control genuinely define the contest, COIN remains applicable; those conditions no longer define today’s strategic trajectory.

The Strategic Environment COIN Cannot Register

Unlike earlier political warfare concepts centered on populations and messaging, governance warfare operates primarily through institutions and administrative systems—encompassing but extending beyond narrower lenses such as strategic corruption, elite capture, or administrative subversion. The most consequential contests today often proceed without the markers COIN was built around. Many occur without occupation. Many occur without an insurgency. Many unfold in states that are nominally stable, institutionally brittle, or politically captured. Many occur through law, regulation, procurement systems, standards regimes, and elite incentive structures that sit beneath the surface of daily life.

These contests operate on administrative time. They accumulate effects through procedural changes, dependency formation, institutional normalization, and narrative conditioning. They often remain “below the threshold” not because they are minor, but because their mechanisms are systemic.

Presence does not automatically translate into leverage. Engagement does not automatically translate into influence. Capacity-building does not automatically translate into alignment. The misalignment manifests in tactical-strategic friction: more exercises, expanded engagements, published strategies, and continued trajectory drift. The framework produces motion while the terrain produces outcomes elsewhere.

The Structural Incompatibility

COIN organizes action around campaigns. Governance warfare organizes competition around institutions. COIN assumes a singular integrating authority. Governance warfare disperses leverage across bureaucratic processes, legal authorities, standards bodies, and legitimacy systems that cannot be commanded in the military sense. COIN’s unit of success often sits at the community or district level. Governance warfare’s unit of leverage often sits at the ministry, regulator, court, procurement authority, licensing regime, or narrative gatekeeper level.

These differences are structural. Governance warfare functions through penetration of systems rather than control of space. It works through altering incentives, constraints, and procedural pathways. It privileges persistence and administrative positioning. It often produces strategic effects without producing operational “events.”

When institutions attempt to treat governance warfare as COIN refreshed for strategic competition, the contest becomes framed in operationally legible ways: engagements, influence campaigns, partner capacity, visible demonstrations. Those activities become a substitute for the deeper system-level leverage that governance warfare actually exploits.

Activity Without Trajectory

Current approaches to competition generate activity without trajectory. One side runs exercises, expands advisory teams, funds capacity-building programs, and reports rising engagement metrics. At the same time, procurement rules quietly shift, licensing regimes narrow, standards bodies align, and regulatory authorities become dependent. Nothing appears destabilized, but the system’s trajectory changes anyway.

The pattern begins with a problem that appears external and adversarial: competitor influence, coercion, elite capture, corruption, malign narratives. The response is organized around what the institution can mobilize quickly: presence, engagements, training, messaging, security cooperation, advisory efforts, capacity-building. Success is assessed through activity and output metrics: number of engagements, partner units trained, exercises completed, messages delivered, leaders engaged, programs launched.

Meanwhile, the competitor’s decisive actions occur inside the partner’s administrative system. Procurement, licensing, regulatory, and judicial authorities gradually align in ways that lock in dependency without visible disruption. Elite incentives are rewritten through patronage, exposure, debt, and access. Narrative ecosystems are shaped through media ownership, platform regulation, and education content. Each move looks bureaucratic. Each move compounds.

The drift emerges because the institutional center of gravity remains operational while the contested center of gravity remains administrative. Activity rises. Trajectory continues.

This pattern unfolds even in environments that look “friendly.” A partner hosts exercises, signs agreements, and publicly aligns, while administrative systems quietly absorb competitor dependencies. A government accepts capacity-building while its regulatory architecture becomes less transparent. A ministry cooperates while procurement rules harden into closed networks. A public remains outwardly calm while legitimacy erodes through the everyday experience of institutional incoherence.

The strain manifests as frustration with interagency friction, fatigue with briefings that show high activity and low impact, skepticism toward messaging that fails to shift perceptions, and the quiet suspicion that the decisive contest is happening in rooms the operational plan never enters. These are symptoms of a framework mismatch.

Beyond COIN: The End of Military-Led Irregular Warfare

Moving beyond COIN means recognizing that in governance warfare, the military is rarely the primary designer of advantage.

Force shapes risk. It can protect access. It can impose costs. It can deter escalation. It can create space. These are significant roles. They become strategically incomplete when treated as the primary integrating authority in environments where leverage is generated through governance mechanisms. In governance warfare, the integrating center of gravity sits in civilian legal–administrative authorities—finance, justice, regulators, standards bodies, and procurement systems—rather than in military command structures.

The terrain consists of rules, procedures, institutions, legitimacy systems, and administrative pathways. It includes the infrastructure of decision-making: who decides, under what authorities, through what processes, influenced by which incentives, constrained by which dependencies. This terrain does not yield to campaign logic. It responds to persistence, positioning, and systemic shaping.

Beyond COIN functions as a boundary marker. COIN addressed a particular historical problem set and left enduring professional lessons. Governance warfare describes a different category of contest. Collapsing them into a single continuum obscures both.

The Contests Ahead

The next era of irregular warfare will hinge on the ability of states and societies to sustain legitimacy under pressure, to preserve institutional coherence, and to resist administrative capture that changes outcomes without dramatic events. Cognitive resilience will matter because perception is governed. Procedural credibility will matter because trust is institutional. Governance performance will matter because legitimacy compounds.

These contests will be won or lost long before violence appears, often without violence at all. They will be shaped in systems that resist operational pacing and cannot be managed as campaigns. The friction will continue whenever institutions default to activity-centered models while competitors focus on system-centered leverage. Assessment shifts from counts of activity to indicators of dependency, procedural credibility, institutional coherence, standards lock-in, and elite incentive alignment.

Irregular warfare has not disappeared. Its decisive arenas have migrated into governance terrain that military-led frameworks struggle to see clearly. COIN remains valuable within its boundary conditions and insufficient as a template for a governance contest.

Governance warfare does not ask for a COIN retrofit. It asks for recognition that the environment has changed, and that the inherited operating system many institutions still rely on was built for a different war.

4. China is the real threat, Taiwan says in rebuff to Munich speech

​Summary:

Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung rebuked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s Munich Security Conference remarks, calling China the real threat to security and accusing Beijing of hypocrisy for invoking the UN Charter while engaging in military provocations and violating its principles against the use or threat of force. Lin said Taiwan’s sovereignty has never belonged to the People’s Republic of China under historical facts, objective reality, or international law, and stressed Taiwan’s people decide their future. He rejected China’s claim Taiwan was “returned” to China in 1945, arguing it was handed to the Republic of China, not the PRC.

Comment: Cognitive warfare. China is fighting on two fronts in this exchange. It presses a legal narrative at Munich, yet Taiwan highlights coercive behavior around the island. Taipei is trying to fix the frame. It wants sovereignty and UN principles to be the lens, not reunification claims. China’s daily military operations and recent war games give Taiwan a ready contrast between words and actions, and Taipei is using it.

If senior Taiwanese officials are not present at Munich, how does that shape the information terrain when China can set the terms in the room? When are these international conferences going to develop some intestinal fortitude and invite Taiwan to participate? We cannot ignore Taiwan when it is part of some of the most complex and dangerous strategic problems the world faces today.

China is the real threat, Taiwan says in rebuff to Munich speech

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned at the Munich Security Conference that some countries were "trying to split Taiwan from China".

15 Feb 2026 12:10PM

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-real-threat-taiwan-says-in-rebuff-munich-speech-5932471

Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung makes a speech at a press conference for foreign media in Taipei, Taiwan, July 19, 2024. (File photo: Reuters/Ann Wang)TAIPEI: China is the real threat to security and is hypocritically claiming to uphold UN principles of peace, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said on Sunday (Feb 15) in a rebuff to comments by China's top diplomat at the Munich Security Conference.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, a view the government in Taipei rejects, saying only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, addressing the annual security conference on Saturday, warned that some countries were "trying to split Taiwan from China", blamed Japan for tensions over the island and underscored the importance of upholding the United Nations Charter.

Taiwan's Lin said in a statement that whether viewed from historical facts, objective reality or under international law, Taiwan's sovereignty has never belonged to the People's Republic of China.

Lin said that Wang had "boasted" of upholding the purposes of the UN Charter and had blamed other countries for regional tensions.

"In fact, China has recently engaged in military provocations in surrounding areas and has repeatedly and openly violated UN Charter principles on refraining from the use of force or the threat of force," Lin said. This "once again exposes a hegemonic mindset that does not match its words with its actions."

China's military, which operates daily around Taiwan, staged its latest round of mass war games near Taiwan in December.

Senior Taiwanese officials like Lin are not invited to attend the Munich conference.

China says Taiwan was "returned" to Chinese rule by Japan at the end of World War Two in 1945 and that to challenge that is to challenge the postwar international order and Chinese sovereignty.

The government in Taipei says the island was handed over to the Republic of China, not the People's Republic, which did not yet exist, and hence Beijing has no right to claim sovereignty.

The republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists, and the Republic of China remains the island's formal name.

5. Japan protests China comments on reviving 'militarism'

​Summary:

Tokyo lodged a “stern demarche” to China after Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, accused “far-right forces” in Japan of seeking to revive militarism and warned that Japan would face “self-destruction” if it “walks back on this path.” Japan’s Foreign Ministry rejected Wang’s claims as “factually incorrect and ungrounded,” stating Japan’s defense strengthening responds to a severe security environment and is not aimed at any specific third country. Japan also criticized countries rapidly expanding military capabilities in a non-transparent manner. Motegi reiterated Japan’s stance at the conference.

Comment: Again, cognitive warfare. Wang’s language targets Japanese public judgment. “Manipulated or deceived” frames Tokyo’s policy as illegitimate and psychologically captured, not strategic. Japan’s rebuttal fights for credibility. It stresses defensive intent and rejects being cast as the aggressor, because perception becomes a battlefield. Munich becomes the stage. Both sides use the Munich global security forum to shape allied and partner narratives about who threatens peace and who hides intent.

If China labels Japanese policy “far-right” and “militarism,” what effects does that framing seek inside allied decision cycles and public opinion abroad?

Japan says its defense posture is not directed at any third country, yet it cites “non-transparent” military buildups. How does Tokyo signal deterrence without validating Beijing’s narrative?

When the contest is argued at Munich, what matters more in shaping outcomes: the legal claims, the moral language, or the credibility of each side’s security rationale?

Japan protests China comments on reviving 'militarism'

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed China's claims, saying they are "factually incorrect and ungrounded". 

16 Feb 2026 11:05AM

(Updated: 16 Feb 2026 11:17PM)

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/japan-protests-china-comments-reviving-militarism-5933621

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks during the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany, on Feb 14, 2026. (Photo: Reuters/Liesa Johannssen)

Read a summary of this article on FAST.

FAST

TOKYO: Tokyo said it had lodged a "stern demarche" to China through diplomatic channels after Beijing's top diplomat Wang Yi accused "far-right forces" in Japan of seeking to revive militarism. 

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Wang weighed in on Beijing's current relationship with Tokyo, which has been under heavy strain since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made comments about Taiwan in November.

Wang said that "Japanese people should no longer allow themselves to be manipulated or deceived by those far-right forces, or by those who seek to revive militarism".

"All peace-loving countries should send a clear warning to Japan: if it chooses to walk back on this path, it will only be heading toward self-destruction."

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the claims in a post on X on Sunday (Feb 15) as "factually incorrect and ungrounded". 

"Japan's efforts to strengthen its defence capabilities are in response to an increasingly severe security environment and are not directed against any specific third country," the statement said.

It said there were "countries in the international community that have been rapidly increasing their military capabilities in a non-transparent manner" but added that "Japan opposes such moves and distances itself from them".

Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi made his stance clear at another session of the conference, followed by a stern demarche against the Chinese side through diplomatic channels, the statement said.

Listen:

Just weeks into her term, Takaichi said Japan would intervene militarily in any attack on Taiwan.

Beijing claims the self-ruled democratic island as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under its control.

Takaichi was seen as a China hawk before becoming Japan's first woman prime minister in October.

She said last week that under her leadership, Japan - which hosts around 60,000 US military personnel - would bolster its defences and "steadfastly protect" its territory.

6. Iran Pitches New Ideas in Nuclear Talks—but Not the One That Matters to Trump

​Summary:

Iran has floated steps to advance nuclear talks, including pausing uranium enrichment, moving some highly enriched uranium stockpiles offshore, forming a regional consortium to produce fuel plates, and offering US business opportunities if sanctions are lifted. The key gap is that Iran has not pledged to end enrichment, while POTUS says he wants a deal that removes Iran’s nuclear program and has assembled major US forces near Iran as leverage. Iran is willing to send some highly enriched uranium to an outside party like Russia, but insists fuel production remain in-country. US aims also include missiles and militias, and sanctions relief remains unclear.

Comment: Iran appears to be signaling flexibility without surrender. It offers pauses, side deals, and consortia, but keeps the enrichment principle intact, because that is its identity and leverage.

Iran Pitches New Ideas in Nuclear Talks—but Not the One That Matters to Trump

WSJ

Pausing uranium enrichment and striking business deals with the U.S. are in the mix, but they fall short of key U.S. demands

By Laurence Norman

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 and Benoit Faucon

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Feb. 17, 2026 6:15 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-pitches-new-ideas-in-nuclear-talksbut-not-the-one-that-matters-to-trump-6e297cf0

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meets the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva. Iranian Foreign Ministry Handout/EPA/Shutterstock

GENEVA—Iranian officials have floated pausing uranium enrichment, moving some of the country’s stockpiles offshore and cutting business deals with the U.S. to move forward nuclear talks that could head off a U.S. strike. But short of a pledge to stop enrichment altogether, the question is whether it will be enough to satisfy President Trump.

Trump, while assembling a massive force just off Iran’s coast, has repeatedly said he wants a deal that rids the country of its nuclear program.

“I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal,” he told reporters late Monday, saying he will remain indirectly involved in Tuesday’s talks in Geneva. “They want to make a deal.”

Iran’s slate of proposals gets closer to the core issue but doesn’t deliver the definitive halt the president has demanded.

According to U.S., Iranian and regional diplomats, Iran has said it is open to sending some of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium—crucial fuel for a nuclear weapon—to an outside party such as Russia, which would address one important U.S. concern. The bulk of the stockpile is currently thought to be buried under the rubble of nuclear sites pounded by the U.S. and Israel in June.

While Iran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, it is the only country without nuclear weapons to have produced 60%-enriched uranium, a purity close to the 90% needed to build a weapon.

Iranian officials also have signaled in conversations with regional diplomats that they might offer to pause enrichment for up to three years, diplomats said. That promise wouldn’t change much—Iran is believed to have stopped enriching uranium after U.S. strikes crippled its main nuclear facilities in June—and falls short of U.S. demands that it halt enrichment altogether.

Iran also floated a proposal at the first meeting, in early February, to set up a regional consortium to produce fuel plates from enriched uranium that it could use, diplomats said. So far, though, Iran has insisted on keeping the production process in the country, a nonstarter for the U.S., the diplomats said.

Some regional diplomats are thinking bigger: a multipoint plan that includes everything from nonaggression commitments to business deals.

The scale is aimed at grabbing the U.S. president’s attention with a splashy plan like the one his envoys crafted to end the war in Gaza.

An Iranian deputy foreign minister, Hamid Ghanbari, said he wants to discuss doing business with the U.S. if sanctions are lifted.

“In the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the U.S., common interests in the fields of oil and gas, mining investments, and even airplane purchases are included in the negotiation framework,” Ghanbari told the semiofficial Fars news agency Sunday. “For the sustainability of the agreement, it is essential that the U.S. also benefits in areas with high and rapid economic returns.”

It is unclear how much of that could be up for serious discussion or whether any of the ideas will be enough to persuade the U.S. that the talks could meet its goal of stripping Tehran of the capacity to make a nuclear bomb.

“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on social media Monday. “What is not on the table: submission before threats.”

While Trump has focused on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has set out broader goals that include reining in Iran’s ballistic missile program and its backing for regional militias like Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as its treatment of protesters at home.

The White House is also under pressure from Israel to constrain Iran’s ballistic missile program. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met Trump last week, said Sunday a good deal would require the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and limits on its ballistic missiles.

Iran has said it would only discuss missiles with its regional counterparts. Oman and Qatar are working to organize a regional summit to discuss the nonnuclear issues, Arab officials said.

With Iran’s enrichment capabilities severely damaged last June, Washington has little incentive to compromise by offering broad-based sanctions relief, said Richard Nephew, who negotiated with Iran under the Biden and Obama administrations.

“It appears that what’s on offer to Iran is similar as with Venezuela: ‘Surrender, and we won’t attack you,’” he said. “Although that might be the right approach, it will be difficult for Iran to accept and call it a deal.”

The Geneva gathering is the second such meeting in two weeks. It follows an initial round in Oman that both sides called a good start. Five rounds of nuclear talks last spring went nowhere and ended with powerful Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran, which badly crippled its nuclear program.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff will again be joined in the talks by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The pair worked together to negotiate the Gaza cease-fire plan.

Some past U.S. negotiators have said Trump has given himself leverage to force a deal by ramping up forces in the Middle East. The Pentagon last week redeployed the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, from the Caribbean and sent it toward the Middle East. It will join another aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and a host of other U.S. warships, warplanes and air-defense systems across the region.

Iranian officials have repeatedly complained that the U.S. hasn’t set out what Tehran would get in terms of sanctions relief if it makes concessions on the nuclear side. At a minimum, Iranian officials said, Tehran wants swift access to the roughly $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues parked in Qatar under U.S. restrictions.

People involved in last spring’s nuclear talks say the U.S. never articulated any detailed sanctions relief and that Washington had decided even the Qatar funds were out of bounds.

Under a 2015 nuclear deal, the U.S. and European countries offered a range of economic, energy and transportation sanctions relief in exchange for strict limits on enrichment for 15 years. Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018, during his first term, complaining it was one-sided and had provided Iran with cash to fund activities that destabilized the region.

The White House faces pressure from Congress not to allow similar sanctions relief that could revive Iran’s economy and allow Tehran to increase its support for regional militias.

On Sunday, Rubio said expectations for a deal weren’t high in Washington. “No one has ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran,” he said. “But we’re going to try.”

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Laurence Norman is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Benoit Faucon is a Middle East correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He focuses on the geopolitics of oil, Iran, and Russia's involvement in Africa and the Middle East. He also has strayed into investigative stories such as pharmaceutical counterfeits, sanctions, money laundering and terror finance.

His work was part of an award-winning package at the Overseas Press Club of America in 2017 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

A four-time winner of the William Clabby awards, Benoit was also part of a finalist team for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for stories on the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The team also earned recognition at the New York News Publishers Association Award that year.

He has written or co-written five books, Including "West Bankers" (Mashreq Publishing, 2010) on the financial history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, "A Cartel Named Daech" (First Editions, 2017, with Clement Fayol) and an upcoming book on crisis entrepreneurs.

He joined Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal in 2002 after three years at French dailies Le Figaro and les Echos.

WSJ

7. Popular anger burns in Iran after crackdown, as Trump turns up pressure

​Summary:

As Iran enters a second round of nuclear talks with the United States in Geneva under rising US military pressure, Tehran projects unity but faces sustained public rage after a crackdown that killed thousands, with arrests continuing. After a partial rollback of a communications blackout, more information spread, deepening trauma and anger. A rights group cited more than 7,000 dead and tens of thousands arrested, with families mourning and economic strain worsening. Analysts warn domestic weakness may reduce leadership flexibility for compromise. Iranian officials blame “terrorists” and emphasize survival through fear, complicating negotiations amid US threats and diplomacy.

Comment: Tehran is fighting for control of the story after the blackout eased. Facts spreading now sharpen grief and rage, and that weakens the regime’s psychological hold. If information flows after a blackout shift public belief, what is the decisive terrain: streets, negotiating rooms, or the narratives that define legitimacy and fear?

Popular anger burns in Iran after crackdown, as Trump turns up pressure

As the Trump administration heads into nuclear talks with Tehran after a government crackdown killed thousands, widespread outrage has not abated, Iranians say.

February 16, 2026 at 1:07 p.m. ESTYesterday at 1:07 p.m. EST

Washington Post · Susannah George

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/02/16/iran-trump-nuclear-talks-protests-anger/

As Iran heads into a second round of nuclear talks with the United States in Geneva on Tuesday, under the threat of U.S. forces building up in the region, Tehran is attempting to project strength and unity. But seething popular anger has not abated in the weeks following a government crackdown that killed thousands of protesters, according to accounts from inside the country.

Following the partial rollback of a government-imposed communications blackout that closed off Iran during the protests and crackdown last month, more information has begun to circulate. Iranians described to The Washington Post a society deeply traumatized, with many people saying they only recently learned the full extent of the violence, as security forces continue to carry out waves of arrests.

But some analysts say Iran’s unprecedented weakness at home could diminish the flexibility of its country’s leadership to make the kinds of compromises necessary for a deal.

Iran remains a nation in shock. The government crackdown left more than 7,000 people dead, more than 6,500 of them protesters, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based advocacy organization for rights in Iran. The figure is expected to climb. Thousands are missing and families are still in mourning. A campaign of arrests continues, some businesses have reopened and schools are back in session, but many parents report keeping their children at home.

“Some of us don’t work because we are still grieving, but some of us cannot work because there are no reliable prices,” said a Tehran shopkeeper, 40. Inflation has skyrocketed since the crackdown, and with the added threat of U.S. strikes, no one wants to spend any money, he said. He has been increasing the prices of goods in his shop almost daily. Like others in Iran interviewed for this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Iranian authorities have arrested tens of thousands of people since last month, according to activists and human rights groups. The campaign has expanded to include prominent political leaders: Azar Mansouri, head of the Reform Front of Iran, was arrested last week and released on bail days later. In some areas, security forces screen people on streets and in businesses for evidence they supported the protests.

A 45-year old woman from Rasht, near Iran’s Caspian Sea coast, said security forces showed up at her niece’s school and strip-searched students for wounds sustained at protests from the less-lethal pellet ammunition fired into crowds.

“Two girls fainted from the stress,” she said. Her niece hasn’t been back to the private school since, which the principal has allowed. But at some public schools, the woman from Rasht said, absences aren’t tolerated and students found with pellet wounds are expelled or arrested.

In other parts of the country, popular anger is bubbling to the surface.

Chants of “Death to Khamenei,” Iran’s supreme leader, can be heard at some funerals for those killed during the protests, according to recent videos shared with The Post. Similar calls rang out in Tehran, “Murderous Khamenei, see it in your dreams,” people yelled from their apartment windows last week, using a dismissive Farsi expression now associated with the January protests.

While the crackdown occurred weeks ago, many Iranians say they are only now coming to terms with its scale. A woman from Bandar Abbas, on the Persian Gulf, who says she participated in the protests, said she saw security forces open fire into the crowds.

“The bullets wouldn’t pause for a second,” she said. As she was running away, someone running beside her was shot and fell to the ground. But even after what she saw, she wasn’t prepared for what she learned of the scale of the killings once internet connectivity was partially restored.

“Seeing the mass killing all over the country felt like waking up from a deep sleep with a slap on my face. I am so ashamed to be alive,” she said. “I am also full of rage.”

Before January she would not have understood why someone would want their own country to be attacked, she said, as the threat of U.S. strikes loomed. “But this time it is different,” she said, espousing a view long unpopular in Iran: “The real enemy is the Islamic Republic and any country or army that can weaken or attack them is going to liberate us.”

When Iranian officials do address the January protests, they blame the violence on “terrorist” groups linked to outside countries. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke last week to families of people killed.

“We are embarrassed because of what has happened in the country,” he said in an even tone to men and women dressed in black sitting in sterile meeting room. Pezeshkian pledged to help those who lost loved ones. “As someone who has a responsibility to this country, sometimes I cannot even sleep thinking about” what happened, he said.

Iran used overwhelming force against the protesters to clear people out of the streets, but to also buy the government time by preventing any future waves of unrest, said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

“They didn’t mind the optics. In fact, they wanted to show how ruthless they were,” he said. “Right now they want society to be scared. They don’t care about the reputational cost. It’s about survival.”

That could complicate negotiations with the U.S. over Iran’s nuclear program.

Public comments by Iranian and U.S. officials in recent days have ranged from optimism that a deal could be reached to threats of military action. Late last week, President Donald Trump said he was sending a second aircraft carrier group to the Middle East and said that regime change was “the best thing that could happen” in Iran. If Tehran wanted to avoid an attack, it should “give us a deal that they should have given us the first time,” he said, referring to talks last summer that ended when the U.S. and Israel launched air attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites.

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a visit Sunday to Slovakia: “The president’s made clear he prefers diplomacy and an outcome of a negotiated settlement.” He said U.S. negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were headed for “important meetings and we’ll see how that turns out.”

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht Ravanchi, told the BBC in a Sunday interview that the ball was “in America’s court to prove that they want to do a deal,” adding that “if they are sincere, I’m sure we will be on the road to an agreement.”

Takht Ravanchi said an Iranian offer to dilute its highly enriched uranium was proof of its willingness to compromise, and he did not rule out an agreement to ship its stockpile out of the country, saying it was “too early to say what will happen in the course of negotiations.”

Robert Malley, a former U.S. official who negotiated with Iran on the nuclear issue under President Joe Biden, said the talks are less likely to succeed if the Trump administration asks for concessions like curbs to Iran’s ballistic missile program or the end of support for armed groups in the region — a widening of scope Tehran has long rejected.

Those are “concessions Tehran’s weakened regime will not make — especially because it is weakened and thus can’t afford to give up the few remaining tools at its disposal,” he said. While Iran’s proxy network is significantly diminished after the war in Gaza, Israel’s blows against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the end of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria, Iran’s missile program remains its only form of deterrence, he said.

Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

Washington Post · Susannah George

8. AI Defense Startup Breaker Raises $6 Million in Seed Funding

​Summary:

Breaker Industries, an AI defense startup developing a voice-controlled AI agent to help operators command multiple autonomous systems, raised $6 million in a seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with Australia’s Main Sequence and European strategic angel investors also participating. The round closed in late 2025 at a $28 million valuation, about four times higher than its pre-seed valuation from almost a year earlier. Breaker says its software reduces workload for controlling multiple systems, can be deployed onto existing hardware, and can operate even when communications links are broken. The company was founded in Australia and moved headquarters to Texas in 2025.

Comment: Fascinating. So much to consider. Voice command compresses decision time. It shifts cognitive load from hands and screens to intent and language, which can change tempo in contested environments. “Works when links are broken” is a fight for resilience. If operational at scale, it reduces an adversary’s ability to win by jamming and disruption alone.  If operator shortages and clearance bottlenecks are real, autonomy plus a single human controller becomes a strategic work-around, and it could shape procurement (and personnel policies).

If the system can operate when communications are broken, what governance and control mechanisms prevent unintended actions once human oversight is degraded? (importance of mission command?)

If incentives and policy shifts accelerate adoption of multi-robot command, what standards should define “coordinated action” so speed does not outrun safety and accountability?

AI Defense Startup Breaker Raises $6 Million in Seed Funding

WSJ

Breaker’s valuation has increased about fourfold since a pre-seed raise almost a year ago

By Stuart Condie

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Feb. 16, 2026 8:19 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-defense-startup-breaker-raises-6-mln-in-seed-funding-53f95c89

Avalon-AI-agent in testing in Australia Breaker

SYDNEY—An artificial-intelligence defense startup seeking to deploy its voice-controlled AI agent across drones and other military technology has raised $6 million in a seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

Breaker Industries, which says its software reduces the work needed to control multiple autonomous systems, closed the raise in late 2025 at a valuation of $28 million.

California-based Bessemer, which previously invested in companies including design-software provider Canva, e-commerce platform Shopify and AI developer Anthropic, led the round. Other investors included Australia’s Main Sequence and European strategic angel investors.

Breaker is trying to take advantage of surging demand for defense tech and a global focus on sovereign capability, Co-Chief Executive Michael Irwin said.

Last year, U.S. President Trump signed an executive order aimed at accelerating the procurement of defense tech. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also ordered the removal of any policies that slow down the development and deployment of drones.

Last month, the U.S. Department of War’s innovation unit announced it would award up to $100 million in prizes to tech providers able to translate commands into coordinated action across fleets of robotic systems.

Breaker, which was founded in Australia and moved its headquarters to Texas in 2025, developed its tech to make it easier and quicker for operators to multitask and control multiple systems with their voice.

Its AI agent is deployed onto existing hardware and can operate even when communication links are broken.

“There’s no other company that can allow a person driving a vehicle or flying a helicopter or running on foot to be able to command and interface with teams of autonomous systems,” said Breaker’s Irwin, who previously worked at Australian defense tech provider DroneShield.

Breaker’s valuation has increased about fourfold since a pre-seed raise almost a year ago. Main Sequence led that raise and contributed about $1.5 million, partner Mike Zimmerman said.

“With the rise of generative and agentic AI, we see a huge opportunity to accelerate the utility of robotics,” Zimmerman said.

As well as the U.S., Breaker has received interest from Singapore and Australia, Zimmerman said.

With its tech able to control multiple devices simultaneously, Breaker said it can help defense forces overcome shortages of qualified operators, all of whom need security clearances and background checks.

The shortage is especially acute in Australia, Breaker co-founder Matthew Buffa said. Buffa is Breaker’s other co-CEO.

“Breaker’s on-robot agents will redefine how militaries deploy and manage autonomous systems,” Bessemer partner David Cowan said.

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Stuart Condie covers corporate news for The Wall Street Journal in Sydney, Australia. Previously, he led the financial news desk at Australian Associated Press. A former sports writer for the AP and Bloomberg, Stuart has an English degree from University of Leicester.

WSJ

9. Xi’s new year message to military reveals PLA Cyberspace Force post in South China Sea

​Summary:

China has deployed part of the PLA Cyberspace Force to Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands, shown in Xi Jinping’s Lunar New Year video greeting to the military. Unit leaders reported they were on “combat readiness duty” and would remain “ready for action” to safeguard the South China Sea outpost. Xi told them to fulfill duties and manage soldiers’ work and living conditions. Retired PLA colonel Yue Gang said the deployment embeds cyber warfare as a frontline element of island defense, filling gaps in cyber and electromagnetic defense and extending control into digital and spectrum domains. The low-profile force was established in 2024.

Comment: If cyber and electromagnetic defense are now “frontline,” then coercion in the South China Sea can be quieter, persistent, and deniable, shaping decisions before ships ever clash.

Xi’s new year message to military reveals PLA Cyberspace Force post in South China Sea

Analyst says deployment signals Chinese military’s cyber warfare capabilities ‘are no longer confined to the mainland’

Yuanyue Dangin Beijing

Published: 8:00pm, 12 Feb 2026

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3343312/xis-new-year-message-military-reveals-pla-cyberspace-force-post-south-china-sea

Yuanyue Dangin Beijing

Published: 8:00pm, 12 Feb 2026

China has deployed a section of its mysterious cyberspace force to the South China Sea to remain “ready for action”, with the unit making a rare appearance in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Lunar New Year greeting to the military.

Xi conveyed his Lunar New Year message to multiple branches of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) via video on Wednesday from Beijing’s Bayi Building – the headquarters of the powerful military command body, the Central Military Commission – according to state broadcaster CCTV.

CCTV footage showed a section of the PLA Cyberspace Force stationed in the South China Sea on Fiery Cross Reef, an artificial island in the disputed Spratly Islands, which China calls the Nanshas.

What did China’s military parade tell us about its capabilities and global standing?

The section chief and the political commissar responsible for ideological work reported to Xi in the video call that the force was conducting “combat readiness duty”.

“We shall remain constantly ready for action, resolutely safeguarding our nation’s outpost in the South China Sea,” the section chief said.

He added that Fiery Cross Reef, which China calls Yongshu Jiao, had “robust support across all fronts and comprehensive living facilities”.

“Fulfil your assigned duties well, particularly to ensure the coordinated management of soldiers’ work and living conditions,” Xi told the unit.

Representatives from other PLA branches were also greeted.

Yue Gang, a retired PLA colonel, said the unit’s deployment on Fiery Cross Reef signalled that the PLA’s cyber warfare capabilities “are no longer confined to the mainland, but are now embedded within the South China Sea island defence system as a frontline operational unit”.

“[This deployment] fills the gap in South China Sea cyber warfare and electromagnetic defence and extends China’s control and countermeasure capabilities in the South China Sea to the digital and spectrum domains,” Yue said.

He added that the deployment was a “crucial step for China in addressing complex security challenges and safeguarding sovereignty and the security of sea lanes”.

In September, the cyberspace force made its first appearance at Beijing’s Victory Day parade, an event that showcased China’s growing military strength.

At the end of that month, Ordnance Industry Science Technology, China’s influential military journal, detailed the unit’s role, saying it would “promptly detect and counter cyber intrusions, safeguarding national cyber sovereignty and information security”.

It added that operations in cyberspace “primarily require the confidentiality and security of command and control”, demanding the use of “command-and-control networks and [hardware and software] systems that are physically isolated from the international internet”.

Furthermore, the unit must be equipped with “reconnaissance and surveillance combat gear”, the article said.

The rare public appearance on Wednesday of the low-profile force, which was established in 2024, comes amid prolonged tensions in the South China Sea.

Beijing asserts sovereignty over most of the resource-rich waters, although neighbouring nations also have claims.

Fiery Cross Reef is the base for Nansha district, one of the two administrative divisions of the city of Sansha, which China established in 2012 to uphold its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.

The reef lies within the disputed waters of the Spratly Islands, over which China, Vietnam and the Philippines all assert sovereignty.

What China’s swift ousting of two top military generals means for the PLA

China carried out land reclamation on this once small coral atoll from 2014 to 2015, expanding it to 2.8 sq km (1.1 square miles) within a year.

Beijing said it had stopped reclaiming land at the reef, but it has already become a crucial component of China’s plan to consolidate its presence in the waters. The reef is believed to be equipped with an airstrip, large port facilities, helicopter landing pads, radar domes, surveillance towers and missile silo shelters.

In 2023, CCTV said the Chinese military personnel stationed on the artificial island had “expelled” a foreign vessel. However, it did not specify the nationality or type of the vessel involved, nor did it say when the incident happened.

Yuanyue Dang

Yuanyue reports on Chinese politics, defence and foreign affairs from Beijing. Prior to joining the Post in 2022, he was a feature writer in Chinese. He studied journalism in Hong Kong and anthropology in London.

10. The Newest Old Tech in Warfare: Balloons

​Summary:

Balloons are reemerging in modern warfare, enabled by improved sensors, autonomy, materials, and AI-supported weather prediction. They can provide reconnaissance, communications links, decoys, and payload delivery, and are hard to detect on radar while operating above many electronic-warfare effects. Ukraine has used balloons for reconnaissance, transport, decoys, and as long-range delivery systems for one-way attack drones and small kamikaze weapons to strike targets deep in Russia, exploiting prevailing winds and low cost to exhaust air defenses. The U.S. Army is incorporating high-altitude balloons into exercises and testing swarms to extend range, surveillance, and strike options.

Comment: We keep going back to balloons even when people say they are an anachronism. But we have come a long way from our Civil War era balloons or barrage balloons from WWII. I remember we used to laugh about Aerostats along our Southern border during JTF-6 missions in the 1990s wrongly criticizing them for being obsolete. I guess we keep coming back to them because they work (in certain situations I would guess). And lest we forget about the chinese balloon flying over the US that we finally shot down. 

Cheap balloons force expensive reactions. That asymmetry strains air defenses (e.g., Chinese balloon) and can erode confidence in protection, which is a cognitive effect as much as a kinetic one. Balloons widen the “seen and unseen” gap. If they barely appear on radar and can act without radio contact, they complicate attribution and feed uncertainty. Range is the point. Ukraine uses wind and autonomy to reach deep targets, and the US Army’s swarm testing shows a similar drive to extend reach across wide theaters.

If AI and weather prediction improve long-range balloon precision, how do commanders assess intent and escalation when “events” arrive from the stratosphere with few signatures?

The Newest Old Tech in Warfare: Balloons

Reinvented as long-range drone-launchers, high-altitude balloons are extending the reach of Ukrainian attacks in Russia and of American surveillance

By Heather Somerville

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 and Daniel Michaels

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Feb. 16, 2026 12:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/the-newest-old-tech-in-warfare-balloons-0966e9af?st=twDG2E

The Kyiv-based balloon startup Aerobavovna conducted a training session for Ukrainian forces in January. Aerobavovna

Quick Summary

• Balloons are making a comeback on the modern AI-powered battlefield, used for spying, communications, and weapon delivery.View more

A military technology from the French Revolution is finding new life on the modern AI-powered battlefield. 

From Russia’s war in Ukraine to the Pacific Ocean, balloons are making a comeback, boosted by high-tech innovations in sensors, autonomy and materials. The low-cost, floating systems can spy, link communications networks and transport payloads. They barely show up on radar and soar high above electronic-warfare transmissions that fry other airborne devices.

They also carry weapons, including one-way attack drones, thousands of miles to hit faraway targets, causing destruction and sowing fear far from the front lines. 

Militaries large and small are paying attention. High-altitude balloons are slated to be part of U.S. Army exercises in Nevada and across Europe in April, and the service is preparing to test swarms of balloons in the Pacific late this year. European allies are testing balloons for a variety of military roles.

“Anything you can do off an airplane, you can do off a balloon—and most countries aren’t looking for it,” said Peter Phillips, a former U.S. Senior Special Operations Officer who worked with balloons.

Meanwhile, Russia and its allies, from Belarus to North Korea, have used balloons to menace and disrupt their neighbors.

Stratospheric winds tend to blow east from Ukraine towards Russia

20 miles per hour

30 or more

Russia

Moscow

Ryazan

Balloons can hit northeastern

targets by changing altitude and riding different wind currents.

Kazakhstan

Belarus

Poland

Kyiv

Ukraine

Area shown

Black Sea

Note: For winds of about 50,000 ft. altitude, 1994 – 2024 average

Source: European Space Agency

Carl Churchill/WSJ

But no country has pushed the balloon frontier further than Ukraine, which is using them to execute audacious strikes deep inside Russia, as well as for reconnaissance and transportation, and as decoys. Kyiv, lacking funding and access to enough sophisticated weapons, has turned to balloons as an inexpensive fallback option that comes with an asymmetric advantage in the form of local wind patterns. 

“It’s necessary, as we would never have enough drones and deep-strike missiles,” said Iurii Vysoven, who co-founded Kyiv-based balloon startup Aerobavovna. “We need this to succeed.”

Ukraine began using balloons soon after Russia’s invasion to drop bombs or grenades and exhaust Russian defenses by carrying payloads designed to resemble combat aircraft on radar, according to people familiar with the missions. In 2024, Ukraine started using balloons—often from American suppliers—as a delivery system for small kamikaze weapons that pilot themselves to a precise target.

The pairing offered a way to strike deep into Russian territory—targeting the country’s oil fields and refineries, shipping terminals and railways—and weaken its economy, people familiar with the matter said.

“This is a very important part of Ukraine’s overall effort to bring Russia to the negotiating table on much more reasonable terms,” said Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an expert on the Russian military.

The Ukrainian Security Service, or SBU, the country’s primary intelligence agency, declined to comment. The General Staff of the Armed Forces, the country’s central military command, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Ukraine forces last year used balloons in attacks on Russian oil refineries, and on Moscow and Ryazan, to the southeast of the capital, according to Russian media reports and people familiar with the matter. Balloons also were used to deliver attack drones to Moscow in December, in an operation that forced a temporary closure of major airports, the people said.

In 2024, Robert Zubrin founded a startup that makes military balloons. Mars Society

“You can do this all day until you exhaust their air defenses because balloons are cheap,” said Robert Zubrin, a 73-year-old aerospace engineer from Brooklyn who founded Pegasus Aerospace, a Colorado-based startup that makes military balloons.

As every child knows, balloons are at the mercy of the wind. In Ukraine, prevailing winds blow east, meaning balloons naturally float toward Russia. “The wind is a series of one-way streets,” said Kyle Guerre, a U.S. Army veteran who is researching balloon navigation technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Operators say that the combination of AI with more accurate weather prediction data has made it easier to hit distant targets with increasing precision. The balloons rise and descend using vents or propellers to find the right currents.

Andrew Evans, director of strategy and transformation for the U.S. Army’s intelligence unit, pointed out that it might cost the enemy millions of dollars to shoot down a balloon that costs a few hundred bucks. The service has spent more than $10 million over the past three years on balloons, and has required that soldiers begin using them.

“We are certainly looking at what is happening in Ukraine and certainly taking those lessons,” Evans said.

President Trump’s signature spending bill last year included $50 million for the development and procurement of high-altitude military balloons. Among the uses envisioned for them are transporting weapons and supplies across the Pacific and providing surveillance in a hypothetical conflict with China.

The Army will test strike capabilities from balloons during an exercise in the Pacific this March, working with Special Operations Command, said Army Chief Technology Officer Alex Miller. Encouraged by a successful experiment last year flying balloons from hundreds of miles inland out over the Atlantic, where they provided intelligence and communications for a maritime force, the Army is now building toward launching up to 100 balloons that coordinate with each other and other weapons systems.

“All of this is about extending range,” Miller said.

Balloons were first used in warfare in the French Revolution. Filled with hydrogen, they were used to reconnoiter enemy positions, their passengers hand-sketching battlefield maps. They played bigger roles in the U.S. Civil War and soon after in the Franco-Prussian War. Rigid, gas-filled airships known as Zeppelins conducted the first offensive missions when crews dropped bombs on England during World War I.

The balloon Intrepid being inflated ahead of the Civil War’s Battle of Fair Oaks in Virginia in 1862. Buyenlarge/Getty Images

In 2023, a Chinese spy balloon traveled across North America for a week before the U.S. military shot it down off the Atlantic coast. The episode was widely viewed by national-security officials as an embarrassment for Washington. The temporary closure of airspace around an El Paso airport last week, after U.S. Customs and Border Protection deployed a counterdrone laser on what turned out to be party balloons, showed how they can confound air defenses.

Today’s high-altitude balloons have opened a new zone of air superiority, above drones and jet fighters and below satellites. These balloons can fold down to the size of a backpack, are equipped with lightweight cameras and other sensors, and are powered by the sun, using solar ray-absorbing materials or small solar panels. They can adjust course autonomously, and operators can push software updates to change the balloon’s mission.

The view from a Pegasus high-altitude balloon. Credit: Pegasus Aerospace

Zubrin, who as founder of the Mars Society is also one of the leading minds on Mars exploration, spent years testing balloons that were designed to one day land on the red planet for NASA. Those balloons never made it to outer space, but when the Ukraine war began, he remembered their utility. 

“The little UAV made the balloon relevant again,” he said, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles. 

He started Pegasus in 2024 with his own money and a handful of engineers in Colorado and Eastern Europe. Zubrin’s balloons are dropped from airplanes, helicopters or drones, and fill with air like a parachute, absorbing the sun’s heat to stay buoyant. The lack of gas tanks makes them easier to transport and cheap enough to discard wherever they land. 

“If you launch your balloon from an open field you are at risk of an enemy counterstrike,” said Zubrin, who has since raised $2.5 million in venture capital and is supplying the U.S. Army and Air Force for testing programs.

In Kyiv, Vysoven swapped his skydiving tourism business for balloon warfare after Russia invaded Ukraine. Today, Aerobavovna is supplying tethered balloons to the Ukrainian military, which uses them near the front lines to relay radio signals and detect enemy signals. Its balloons also carry payloads for deep strikes in Russia, Vysoven said.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Do you think stratospheric balloons might transform the war in Ukraine as well as other future conflicts? Join the conversation below.

Planetfall, based in the U.K. and Germany, has developed strike drones that are dropped by its balloons 100,000 feet or 19 miles up, where freezing temperatures and thin air wreak havoc on ordinary drones. Once dropped, the unpowered aircraft can hit a target almost vertically, making them nearly impossible to intercept, with the added advantage of no radio contact or heat signature from a motor to give them away, said founder Victor Freiherr von Suesskind. The company has research and development contracts with the British military and Ukraine has used its systems.

Ethan Thornton said he got fixated on balloons at age 17—five years ago—after reading about a Google project that kept one over Puerto Rico for almost a year. His company, Southern California-based Mach Industries, last year spun up a balloon project and developed a new way of manufacturing material that avoids hand-stitching and radically reduces the cost.

“We used to be in a world where we built really expensive, heavy hardware and it was like waving goodbye to the Mayflower when it launched,” said the Army’s Evans. “That’s not the world we live in anymore.”

Appeared in the February 17, 2026, print edition as 'Low-Tech Balloons Make Comeback High Above Battlefields Worldwide'.

Heather Somerville is a reporter at The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco covering technology and national security. Her articles explore the national-security implications of emerging technology, U.S. efforts to counter China's rise as a technology power, and the relationship between Silicon Valley and the U.S. defense complex.

Heather joined the Journal in 2019 to cover venture capital and technology companies. Before that, she wrote about venture capital and Silicon Valley startups for Reuters and the Mercury News. She was previously a reporter for the Fresno Bee and the Charlotte Observer and wrote about national security for outlets in Washington, D.C.

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Daniel Michaels is Brussels Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal. He was previously German Business Editor, also overseeing coverage of the European Central Bank. For 15 years before that, he was the Journal’s Aerospace & Aviation Editor for Europe, covering airlines, aviation and aerospace

11. The Silence at the Pentagon

​Summary:

The author describes an October 15 rupture in Pentagon press access. More than 30 journalists left the Pentagon press corridor after refusing to sign SECDE/WAR Hegseth’s “Press Access Rules,” which allow revoking passes if reporters request or collect unapproved information even if unclassified. The War Department later onboarded a new press corps of independents and influencers who accepted the terms. Legacy outlets continued oversight “from a distance,” leaning on budget and congressional tracking and confidential whistleblowers. The piece argues the policy is an unprecedented threat to press freedom and FOIA in practice, and that the episode damages US credibility on press freedom abroad.

Excerpt:

That evening, on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, retired General Jack Keane offered a reminder of what accountability means in a democracy. “They want to spoon-feed information to reporters,” he said. “But that’s not journalism. Journalism is about finding the story yourself, verifying the facts yourself, proving that what you publish is true.” He added, no one simply knocks on a four-star general’s door, but when reporters dig to uncover what’s really happening in the military, that’s legitimate.And then, almost as advice to his peers: “See the media as your bridge to the American people. Some stories made me uncomfortable, mostly because they were right, and we hadn’t done our jobs.” Those words landed like a quiet reprimand, a reminder that the press remains the Fourth Estate only when it dares to face power, not follow it.

Comment: General Keane gets it. I wish the Pentagon leadership would accept his wise counsel. We will never be able to practice effective cognitive warfare if we remain afraid of the press and cannot operate in a transparent environment. These actions actually support the desired outcomes of our adversaries' political warfare strategies. We are subverting our own values for them.

Control the questions, and you shape the mind of the public. The rule targets curiosity, not leaks, and that is cognitive terrain. Removing hallway access does not end scrutiny. It pushes reporting into darker channels, where mistrust grows and whistleblower reliance rises. The world reads signals. When Washington narrows press access at the Pentagon, rivals can use it to blunt US moral authority on openness.

If “unapproved but unclassified” information can trigger loss of access, who decides what is safe to ask, and what happens to democratic accountability when that gate becomes policy?

If oversight shifts to whistleblowers and “reporting from a distance,” does secrecy increase operational security, or does it increase strategic risk through rumor, distrust, and adversarial narratives?

If allies and adversaries cite this as precedent, how does the United States defend press freedom abroad while narrowing it at the Pentagon?

Peace through strength requires the strength to work and thrive in an adversarial environment with our Fourth Estate that is performing one of the basic functions of our democratic republic. Paradoxically, these actions are a demonstration of weakness and fear and not strength. 

Defense/Security

The Silence at the Pentagon

The price of press freedom

Feb 16, 2026

∙ Paid

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/silence-pentagon?r=7i07&utm

By: Hà Giang

Last October 15, another crack in the wall of American democracy, another date etched into the long chronicle of press freedom, and its erosion. Four months later, it is still difficult to process, its implications still spreading. On that day, the press corridor inside the Pentagon, one of the most powerful buildings on earth, went silent. That afternoon, more than 30 journalists from Reuters, the Associated Press, The New York Times, CNN, NBC, ABC, and even Fox News quietly packed up their desks. They turned in their badges, cleared their drawers, and walked out.

No one forced them. They left because they refused to sign a document called the Press Access Rules, issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. It looked like routine bureaucracy. In truth, it redrew the boundary between government and the press, a line that American democracy has always held sacred. For those who had spent years walking the Pentagon’s polished floors, the silence felt almost unreal. The clack of heels, the shuffle of notepads, the low hum of voices, all gone. The hallway that had once pulsed with questions now felt like a museum after hours.

In December, the “War Department” began onboarding a new press corps composed of independent journalists and social media influencers who agreed to the terms. But Hegseth is learning that reporting doesn’t stop when doors are closed. Despite losing physical access to the building and official briefings, journalists have continued their oversight through alternative methods, with CNN and The Associated Press stating they would report “from a distance,” focusing on budget tracking and congressional oversight. The shutdown has forced a shift toward more adversarial, in-depth reporting that relies heavily on confidential whistleblowers, as official channels are now choked off.

Gag order called “national security”

Under the new policy, any outlet wishing to keep Pentagon access must sign an agreement to follow “access conditions.” The most disputed clause allows the Department of Defense to revoke a journalist’s pass if they request or collect unapproved information, even when that information isn’t classified. For the Pentagon Press Corps, a group with roots stretching back to World War II, this was more than a bureaucratic insult. These reporters have chronicled the US military’s triumphs and tragedies for generations, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. Their questions have often made officials uncomfortable, but their work has also built public trust in the very institutions they covered.

Now, overnight, that delicate balance was collapsing. Hegseth defended the policy as “common-sense media procedures” designed to protect national security and maintain information discipline, according to Pentagon statements reported by AP and Politico. To the reporters, it felt like a muzzle disguised as procedure, a demand to surrender the instinct that defines journalism itself: to ask questions.

When the 4 pm deadline passed, the corridor emptied in silence. No shouts. No banners. Only the soft scrape of cardboard boxes across the floor. In that silence, the reporters seemed to say what every journalist knows instinctively, we cannot do journalism if we are told what questions to ask. The hallway, once alive with footsteps and murmurs, looked like a quiet funeral for press freedom inside the Pentagon. Nancy Youssef of The Atlantic, who has covered the building for nearly two decades, called the new rule an invisible cord binding the hands of those meant to watch power. She argued that it was absurd to make reporters pledge not to approach or question military officials. To her, and to many others, the symbolism was unmistakable: the most fortified building in America had just locked its doors against one of democracy’s oldest sentinels.

Rare moment of unity

“This policy is unprecedented and threatens the foundational principles of press freedom,” The Joint statement by AP, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News stated. Fox News added in its own release: “Fox News Media will not agree to any policy that undermines the freedom of the press.” The shock was sharper because Hegseth had once been a Fox contributor. Now his former network stood publicly against him.

For a brief, rare moment, America’s divided media landscape, liberal and conservative, establishment and cable, spoke with one voice. The moment recalled earlier chapters in American journalism when fierce competitors joined forces to defend a common principle: the Pentagon Papers in 1971, when The New York Times and The Washington Post defied government injunctions to publish truth; or the early days of Watergate, when journalists from different papers pursued the same shadow.

Those moments are rare. They happen only when the profession remembers why it exists, not to entertain or to flatter, but to hold the line between truth and power.

Only one small conservative outlet, OANN, signed the new rule, a reminder that press freedom rarely disappears overnight. It erodes slowly, one compromise at a time, when obedience begins to masquerade as cooperation, when power wants to steer the pen.

Journalism has no army. No budget. Only the right to ask and to reveal truth. The idea of the press as the Fourth Estate dates back centuries, but its spirit was woven into America’s founding fabric. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.”

The First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” gave journalism a sacred charge: to question power itself. The founders understood a simple equation: once information is hidden, power escapes control. Journalism was meant not just to record history but to act as conscience, an institution outside the power structure yet capable of holding it to account. But when power begins to guide the pen, the line between transparency and propaganda blurs. And that blur, once accepted, spreads like fog.

What’s happening at the Pentagon isn’t an “access issue.” It’s a stress test for democracy’s immune system, a measure of how much silence a free society can endure before it forgets how to speak.

At a White House briefing that afternoon, President Donald Trump, who appointed Hegseth, defended him, saying he believed the press was a disruptive force that interfered with peace, then repeated a familiar claim: “The media are very dishonest.”

Observers noted that the tone was not new, but the target was. The commander-in-chief was no longer criticizing a single journalist or network; he was defending restrictions on an entire press corps.

That evening, on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, retired General Jack Keane offered a reminder of what accountability means in a democracy. “They want to spoon-feed information to reporters,” he said. “But that’s not journalism. Journalism is about finding the story yourself, verifying the facts yourself, proving that what you publish is true.” He added, no one simply knocks on a four-star general’s door, but when reporters dig to uncover what’s really happening in the military, that’s legitimate.And then, almost as advice to his peers: “See the media as your bridge to the American people. Some stories made me uncomfortable, mostly because they were right, and we hadn’t done our jobs.” Those words landed like a quiet reprimand, a reminder that the press remains the Fourth Estate only when it dares to face power, not follow it.

When truth is locked away

If press freedom is the right to speak, then freedom of information is the right to know. Two rights sharing the same breath, and no democracy can survive if either is lost.

Created in 1966, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) forced the US government to act transparently, affirming that information belongs not to the state, but to the people.

Thanks to FOIA, Americans learned about the Vietnam War’s hidden costs through the Pentagon Papers, about secret drone programs through investigative reporting, about government surveillance through Edward Snowden’s disclosures. Each revelation was controversial, yet each upheld the idea that citizens have a right to know what is done in their name.

Now that door is closing again, not by changing laws, but by quietly blocking those who try to use them. When the Pentagon requires journalists to seek prior approval before requesting information, it cuts off the flow at its source, rendering FOIA meaningless.

A journalist cannot request a document they are forbidden to ask about. And when the right to ask is strangled, the right to know dies next. Citizens are left with only one voice the government’s.

Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Information are twin rivers feeding the same sea: accountability. Block one, and the current of democracy begins to dry.

And perhaps the most dangerous thing about quiet rules is that they do not break the law, they hollow it out.

The world watches

The image of reporters leaving the Pentagon crossed oceans. From London to Paris, Berlin to Sydney, newsrooms reacted with shock and disbelief. They knew: this wasn’t only America’s story, it was a warning.

“A blow to transparency and to the independent press that has long been America’s pride.”— Reuters

Coverage in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, RSF, and other outlets warned that the Pentagon’s move set a dangerous precedent and signaled a retreat from openness — a reminder that control of the press rarely begins with bans, but with rules that seem harmless. In Europe, editorials asked how the United States could still claim moral authority to defend press freedom abroad. In Asia, commentators noted that Washington’s credibility on free expression was now visibly cracked. In Latin America and Africa, press unions called it a betrayal of values that the US once championed through training programs and media development aid. For journalists in countries already struggling with censorship, the sight of empty desks in the Pentagon carried a chilling message: if the light dims in Washington, what hope remains for the rest of the world?

And for those of us who came to America because we believed in that light, the belief that truth could be spoken freely, printed boldly, and heard without fear, the silence cut even deeper.

The silence in the Pentagon had an echo, one that circled the globe.

From oath to question

Standing before those empty desks in the Pentagon’s corridor, I felt it deeply: journalism is not just a profession. It’s a choice, to stand with truth, even when that means walking away from comfort, from access, from safety. I wish I could have walked beside those reporters as they left, carrying both pride and loneliness, the quiet dignity of people who guard the flame. Because in that moment, they spoke for all of us: journalism was never meant to bow; it was meant to illuminate.

Their courage took me back to 2011, when I spent two days aboard the aircraft carrier USS Stennis to learn how the U.S. Navy operates. Every morning, in a vast hall, hundreds of sailors — from new recruits to senior officers stood straight and recited:

“I am a United States Sailor. I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and I represent the fighting spirit of the Navy and those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.”

Those last three words, around the world — still echo in my heart. Because standing there, surrounded by the endless sea, I thought of Vietnam, where so many still pay, quietly and painfully, for the dream of freedom and democracy. That night on the Stennis, I remember thinking that America’s strength did not come from weapons or wealth, but from something invisible, a promise that truth, no matter how inconvenient, would always have a place to stand. That promise feels more fragile now.

The events of October 15 kept me awake long into the night, reading, writing, half-angry, half-awed. Proud of the journalists who refused to bend. Comforted, somehow, that conscience still has a voice, even when that voice must speak in silence. And as dawn broke, one question refused to fade, it only grew louder: What is really happening to press freedom — and to the freedom to know — in America?

Hà Giang is a Vietnamese-American journalist with several decades of experience working across international and diaspora media. Her career has included reporting and editorial work with Radio Free Asia, which focused heavily on issues of press freedom. RFA’s Tibetan, Burmese, Korean, Lao, Cantonese, Khmer and Uyghur language services have been shut down by the Trump administration.

12. Report exposes 2,300 CCP-linked groups infiltrating western democracies

​Summary:

The provided text claims a Jamestown Foundation report identified more than 2,300 CCP linked organizations operating in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the UK, including 967 in the US. It says the United Front Work Department co-opts overseas Chinese communities, universities, and local governments through invitations, financial incentives, and coercion, while these groups present themselves as independent civic organizations. The groups are described as spanning student, business, media, cultural, political, and professional networks that amplify CCP narratives on issues like Taiwan and human rights. The text further alleges these networks enable espionage, technology theft, and transnational repression, including secret police stations and harassment of dissidents, and urges transparency and coordinated countermeasures.

Comment: The 27 page report can be accessed here though I have to admit it is difficult to make sense of. https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/Jamestown_UF_Report.pdf I will need to take some time to study it.

Report exposes 2,300 CCP-linked groups infiltrating western democracies

newstarget.com · February 12, 2026

By Cassie B. // Feb 12, 2026

https://www.newstarget.com/2026-02-12-ccp-linked-groups-infiltrating-western-democracies.html

• A Jamestown Foundation report exposes more than 2,300 CCP-linked organizations operating in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK to push Beijing’s agenda.
• The CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) systematically co-opts overseas Chinese communities, academic institutions, and local governments through coercion and financial incentives.
• These groups span student associations, business networks, media outlets, and cultural organizations, all amplifying CCP narratives while posing as independent civic groups.
• The UFWD enables espionage, technology theft, and transnational repression, including secret police stations and harassment of dissidents.
• Western governments have failed to counter this influence, with experts calling for greater transparency, public education, and international cooperation to dismantle these networks.

A bombshell report from the Jamestown Foundation has uncovered a vast network of Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked organizations operating in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the UK totaling more than 2,300 groups. The U.S. alone hosts 967 such organizations, including student associations, business groups, media outlets, and civic organizations, all working to advance Beijing’s political, economic, and ideological agenda.

The findings, published February 11, reveal how the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), a key arm of the regime’s influence operations, has systematically co-opted overseas Chinese communities, academic institutions, and even local governments to push pro-Beijing narratives while obscuring its direct involvement.

A decades-long strategy of coercion and influence

The UFWD, which reports directly to the CCP’s Central Committee, has long been described by Chinese leaders as a "magic weapon" for mobilizing support. Under Xi Jinping, its mission has expanded beyond economic engagement to include political lobbying, talent recruitment, and transnational repression, targeting dissidents, ethnic minorities, and critics of the regime.

The report details how the CCP identifies and cultivates relationships with overseas groups, inviting leaders to China, offering financial incentives, and gradually embedding Party-aligned messaging into their activities. Over time, these organizations become proxies for Beijing, amplifying CCP narratives on issues like Taiwan, human rights, and U.S.-China relations, all while presenting themselves as independent civic groups.

The scope of the network

The 2,300+ identified groups span eight categories:

• Identity-based organizations (697): Hometown associations, alumni groups, and race-based networks that promote CCP-approved versions of Chinese identity.
• Student organizations (539): Campus groups that facilitate monitoring and influence over Chinese students abroad.
• Business associations (322): Economic networks that funnel foreign investment and technology back to China.
• Educational organizations (102): Schools and cultural programs that indoctrinate second- and third-generation Chinese with Party-approved narratives.
• Professional organizations (170): Talent recruitment hubs for scientists, engineers, and academics.
• Political groups (86): Lobbying arms that push pro-CCP policies in Western governments.
• Media outlets (162): Chinese-language news platforms that spread state propaganda.
• Cultural and friendship groups (216): Soft-power tools that host events to whitewash the CCP’s image.

One striking example is the Chinese American Federation (CAF), a California-based group that has organized protests against Taiwanese officials, lobbied against U.S. support for Hong Kong, and hosted CCP officials at its events. Its former president, Simon Shao, openly stated his role was to "tell China’s story well" and "intervene in politics" – a direct admission of the UFWD’s influence.

From soft power to transnational repression

Beyond propaganda, the report documents how these groups enable espionage, technology theft, and harassment of dissidents. In 2023, U.S. prosecutors charged two New York men, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, with operating a secret Chinese police station inside the America ChangLe Association. The facility was part of a global network of 102 such outposts, used to monitor and intimidate Chinese expats.

Similarly, in Canada, the RCMP investigated two Montreal-based organizations, Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal and South Shore Sino-Québec Centre, for alleged ties to Beijing’s "persuasion to return" campaign, which coerced 230,000 Chinese nationals into returning to China between 2021 and 2022.

The report warns that while much of the UFWD’s activity is conducted openly, Western governments have failed to adequately track or counter it. Current foreign agent registration laws, such as the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), are underutilized, with only 275 Chinese entities registered despite the 967 identified groups.

Experts argue that greater transparency, public education, and international cooperation are needed to expose and dismantle these networks. Without action, the CCP’s influence will continue to erode democratic institutions from within.

The bigger picture: A global power play

The UFWD’s operations are part of a broader CCP strategy to reshape the international order in its favor. By leveraging diaspora communities, infiltrating academia, and manipulating local politics, Beijing seeks to neutralize opposition, acquire foreign technology, and position China as the dominant global power, all while avoiding direct accountability.

As the report concludes, these organizations "constitute latent capacity that the Party can mobilize to advance the Party's agenda." The question now is whether Western democracies will wake up before it's too late.

Sources for this article include:

TheEpochTimes.com

Jamestown.org

TheEpochTimes.com

TheEpochTimes.com

newstarget.com · February 12, 2026

13. Chemical Weapons by Violent Non-State Actors in Combat

​Summary:

The authors argue that while violent non-state actor (VNSA) chemical weapon use in combat is rare, recent and historical cases show a growing operational risk. They note chemical agents can cause mass casualties and are easier to obtain than other CBRN threats, sometimes from industrial sources or online. They highlight the LTTE’s 19 June 1990 chlorine attack attempt at East Kiran that caused brief incapacitation but no deaths, and Islamic State’s repeated use of chlorine and mustard gas from 2014–2017, including mortars, rockets, VBIEDs, and IEDs, with limited casualties but strong psychological effects. They warn future risk may involve drones combined with chemical agents.

Chemical Weapons by Violent Non-State Actors in Combat

by Matthew Turner, by Jason Sapp

|

02.17.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/02/17/chemical-weapons/

Abstract

While the use of chemical weapons by non-state actors in warfare is rare, several recent examples, by the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka and by the Islamic State in Syria, offer insight to potential future challenges that non-state actors may pose.

Introduction

Chemical weapons are currently being deployed in a number of ongoing conflicts, including by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the Sudanese Civil War and by Russian forces in Ukraine. However, the danger of chemical weapons used by violent non-state actors (VNSAs) has been known for decades. Chemical weapons have a dangerous ability to cause mass casualty events; while still difficult to effectively create, they are significantly easier to produce than other CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiation, and Nuclear) threats. Many chemical agents can be readily supplied from industrial sources or simply purchased online. 

VNSAs have already employed chemical weapons for years. During the September 11th terrorist attacks, Al-Qaeda agents took control of American Flight 11 through the use of makeshift knives and commercial chemical compounds including Mace and pepper spray to incapacitate and drive back the passengers. Other notable examples include the infamous Aum Shinrikyo sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995, and the Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA) deliberately contaminating vodka bottles with sodium hydroxide in an attempt to spread terror. 

Despite these incidents of chemical weapons in acts of terror, the use of chemical weapons in combat by VNSAs was initially exceeding rare, with the first recorded use occurring in 1990. Unfortunately, since then, the incidence of chemical weapon use by VNSAs has been an increasing threat in active warfare. 

The Tamil Tigers, 1990

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka, better known as the “Tamil Tigers”, was considered one of the most professional and dangerous terrorist organizations in the world. Founded in 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakara, the LTTE quickly proved itself to be a ruthless, extremely disciplined, and innovative organization. It pioneered the use of suicide bombers, female fighters, cyanide capsules, and even the use of cyber warfare. At its height, the LTTE had effectively formed a quasi-state within Sri Lanka, with armored and artillery units, a primitive air force, international relationships with a range of other terrorist organizations including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda, offices/cells in at least 54 other countries, and an annual income of $200-300 million. Given the capabilities of this organization, the near-total victory that the Sri Lankan government achieved over the LTTE in 2009 is astonishing, though outside the scope of this paper.

Throughout its three decade war against the Sri Lankan government, innovation remained a core tenet of the LTTE. One of the most notable examples of this occurred on 19 June 1990, when the organization engaged in the first use of a chemical weapon by a non-state organization in warfare. As part of a wide-scale offensive in northeast Sri Lanka, a LTTE contingent of approximately 300 combatants besieged a Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) military base in East Kiran. The garrison of 60 SLAF soldiers held out against constant pressure for 10 days, when a relief column was able to arrive and break the siege. 

On the final day of the siege, the LTTE engaged in a desperate last push against the defenders. At 0530, one of the SLAF commanders observed a noxious vapor blowing toward the camp. As it overcame the defenders, men fell unconscious. The commander reported “…there was no oxygen for me to breathe and I was having difficulty getting my breath, breathing was difficult…” While there was initially some confusion over whether the LTTE had delivered the chemical weapons via mortar shell, it appears more likely that they had used barrels of chlorine stolen from a nearby paper mill, cutting open the drums and letting the wind carry it to the SLAF positions. However, this tactic quickly failed. Although the SLAF had no chemical warfare protective gear, the garrison quickly adapted – the soldiers removed their t-shirts, dipped them in water, and used them as makeshift masks. A change in the wind also drove the gas back toward the enemy lines. When the relief column arrived at 0930, most of the ill effects had worn off. Although some men were briefly incapacitated, the SLAF garrison sustained no causalities from this incident. While this desperate attack – likely motivated by the imminent arrival of the relief column – failed, it is important to note that this incident is the first recorded use of a chemical weapon by a non-state actor in combat. 

Even though the LTTE considered other unconventional weapons – in one 1985 plot, the LTTE attempted to steal a supply of radium from a Jaffa hospital to airdrop into an SLAF camp as a makeshift radiological device – the LTTE does not appear to have significantly engaged in any further use of chemical weapons until its demise 19 years later. 

Tulza, 1992

During the Yugoslav Wars, the CIA noted that a large chlorine plant, containing over 500 tons of chlorine gas, was located in the heavily contested Tuzla area. Intelligence estimated that a mass release of the chemicals at the plant could result in widespread death within the 230,000 inhabitants living within 20 kilometers. While details are scarce, several analysts have suggested that Muslim forces in the area threatened to potentially release the industrial chemicals.

The use of chemical weapons in the wider Yugoslav Wars has been attributed to several state actors, but the true extent of such chemical weapon use remains controversial.

Islamic State, 2014

The Islamic State (IS), an apocalyptic, transnational jihadist organization that captured large sections of Iraq and Syria in the 2010s, bears several strands in common with the LTTE. An organization defined by its “ruthless pragmatism” that was effectively a quasi-state at the height of its power, IS also used chemical weapons in warfare – albeit far more often than the LTTE ever did. 

From 2014-2017 alone, IS used chlorine and mustard gas at least 76 times in combat situations. In one notable instance in July 2015, IS forces fired several mortar rounds at an opposing force in Syria, releasing low concentrations of mustard gas. IS targeted US forces with sulfur mustard shells in 2016 and 2017, to limited effect. Further attacks have also included the use of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) augmented with chlorine gas. Simple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have also been augmented with chlorine gas – IS was reported to have deployed dozens of chlorine IEDs throughout 2015. IS forces have also deployed chemical weapons via makeshift rockets, firing 19 chlorine-carrying rockets in February 2016, followed by a salvo of approximately 40 rockets containing mustard gas in March 2016. 

Even for well-funded, highly motivated, and technically savvy non-state actors like the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult, chemical weapons are difficult to produce and effectively deploy in an unsuspecting peacetime environment. Much like the LTTE, IS’s use of chemical weapons has been relatively primitive. Much like the Tamil Tigers, most of IS’s chlorine appears to have been requisitioned from local water treatment and fertilizer plants; IS’s supply of sulfur mustard was likewise obtained from the Misraq chemical plant and sulfur mine. All of these attacks were used on an ad-hoc basis, with mustard gas being the deadliest agent deployed; the psychological impact of these weapons was far greater than the impact of any actual causalities inflicted. Multiple studies have noted the severe long-term mental impact that chemical weapons may have on mental and psychological health.

However, the degradation of IS’s capabilities in recent years, as well as the increasing effectiveness of drones in warfare, has made it significantly less likely that IS will pursue expensive, difficult, and time-consuming chemical weapon development when drones offer a similar means of indirect fire support. 

Future Directions

However, the threat still remains and may even evolve in the future. A number of recent papers have brought up the disturbing possibility of future combatants combining the range and maneuverability of drones with chemical warfare. VNSAs across the world have rapidly embraced drone technology; they have proven particularly effective in ongoing conflicts such as the Sudanese Civil War. As these technologies become ever commercialized and readily available, the potential threat of VNSAs combining drone technology and chemical weapons on the battlefield is becoming ever more present.

Conclusion

While the use of chemical weapons by non-state actors in combat is a relatively new phenomenon, the examples of the LTTE and IS display several commonalities that may occur in future conflicts. Modern militaries should recognize and prepare for these risks, particularly in counterinsurgency operations. Chemical weapons deployed by similar organizations are likely to be crude and small-scale, deployed through explosives, primitive projectiles, or even wind dispersal, although there is a possibility of future drone use. Ultimately, it is likely that the psychological impact of these weapons will far outweigh any tactical advantage that they may confer. 

Tags: Chemical Weapons, Counter-insurgency, irregular warfare, non-state actors

About The Authors

• 
  
• Matthew Turner
• Captain Matthew David Turner is a current active-duty Army physician working as a PGY-3 EM resident at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Hospital in Hershey, Pennsylvania. One of his interestsis the evolving world of counterinsurgency.
• View all posts Captain
• 
  
• Jason Sapp
• COL Jason Sapp is an active-duty Army internal medicine physician currently working as the Transitional Year Residency Program Director at Madigan Army Medical Center, Joint Base Lewis McChord, WA. Over the course of his career, he has deployed twice to Afghanistan and spent two years as a Brigade Surgeon at Ft. Carson, CO. His interests include primary care, medical education, and history.

14. AI-Intelligentized Naval Mines and U.S. Subsea Access in the Paracel Islands

​Summary:

Catherine Marie Abbott argues PLAN-affiliated oceanographers see the Paracel Islands’ rugged bathymetry and acoustic “shadow zones” as ideal terrain for AI-intelligentized seabed mines to create subsea A2/AD by obscuring direction and disrupting submarine sonar. These AI-enabled mines are described as conceptual but plausible, using multi-sensor inputs to discriminate targets and selectively engage while remaining dormant in acoustically complex environments. The Paracels are portrayed as important for US ISR access near Hainan and China’s SSBN bases, amid continued Chinese militarization and a “Transparent Ocean Initiative.” ​S​he says mines and reef militarization could constrain US undersea maneuver and situational awareness, and recommends advanced detection plus electronic attack, spoofing, and deception to preserve access.

AI-Intelligentized Naval Mines and U.S. Subsea Access in the Paracel Islands

by Catherine Marie Abbott

|

02.17.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/02/17/ai-intelligentized-naval-mines-and-u-s-subsea-access-in-the-paracel-islands/

Abstract

According to People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)–affiliated military oceanographers’ assessments of the Paracel Island region, include acoustically attenuated shadow zones created by rugged seamounts and abrupt bathymetry are prime locations for AI-intelligentized seabed mines to establish a subsea anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) zone by obscuring direction and disrupting submarine sonar. Although these AI-enabled systems remain conceptual, they represent a plausible evolution of PLAN mine warfare doctrine capable of selectively engaging vessels while remaining dormant in acoustically complex environments.

Importance of the Paracel Islands

The Paracel Islands remain indispensable to U.S. naval operations, enabling seamless access to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) posture due to their strategic location near Hainan Island, home to China’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) fleet at the Longpo and Yulin bases. The islands are distinctly known as the subject of sovereignty disputes, with notable claimants including Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The United States continues to engage in Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs)in the region to contest Beijing’s claim. Despite this, China has asserted ownership and continues to militarize the Paracel Islands, including 20 reported lily-pad installations with helipads, radar, and berthing for warships across Woody Island and Antelope Reef, as noted in recent satellite imagery as of January 2026.

Amid the PLA’s ongoing militarization of the Paracel Islands, the PLAN-affiliated military oceanographers have assessed that the subsea domain of the region can be exploited to conceal naval mines among the rugged seamounts, using full advantage of natural acoustic blind spots to create persistent kill zones. The PLAN’s effort to militarize surrounding reefs in the Paracels would correspondingly augment its A2/AD framework, the Transparent Ocean Initiative, a multi-layered, seabed-to-space monitoring architecture designed to improve environmental awareness and track submarine activity in the South China Sea and enable uninterrupted control of the general Western Pacific theatre from foreign intervention.

PLAN Subsea Mine Network and AI-Targeting Capabilities

As an asymmetric tool, Chinese maritime doctrine identifies naval mines as a means of securing the sea domain, given their ease of deployment, difficulty of detection and neutralization, and utility in constraining adversary maneuver. The PLAN fields more than thirty types of naval mines – including contact, magnetic, acoustic, pressure, mixed-influence, remote-controlled, rocket-rising, and mobile variants – across an estimated inventory of 50,000 to 100,000 weapons.

Although current references to AI‑enabled naval mines are conceptual rather than operational, open‑source reporting indicates that PLA‑affiliated researchers are actively modeling AI‑intelligentized seabed mines as an extension of existing PLAN architectures. In contrast to current mine systems, which rely on static influence parameters, AI‑augmented variants would be computationally amplified to process volumetric data inputs—including acoustic, magnetic, and optical signals—allowing adaptive target discrimination and selective engagement logic within shadow zones. When emplaced within bathymetrically shielded shadow zones, such systems could retain contextual information across prior detection events, refining classification thresholds over time and thwarting mine countermeasure efforts.

Implications for US Naval Operations

The continual militarization of the Paracel Islands’ surrounding reefs enables the PLAN to determine the undersea battlespace parameters by fortifying its A2/AD infrastructure, limiting U.S. naval maneuverability, and obstructing ISR operational planning. Given the Paracel Island’s sonar shadow zones, these conditions affect the overall effectiveness of U.S. submarine assets and can constrain the situational awareness required for reliable navigation. If hazardous externalities obstruct subsea locomotion, such that assets must adjust transit routes and employ countermeasures to maintain freedom of movement, these factors not only increase resource demands and operational risks but also create localized control zones signifying a loss of domain access and effectively ceding control of key approaches to PLAN forces, validating Beijing’s claims and militarization of the Islands.

Recommended Actions for the United States

The United States should counter AI‑enabled Chinese seabed mines by combining advanced mine‑detection systems with asymmetric electronic warfare measures tailored to acoustically complex shadow‑zone environments. To preserve undersea access, U.S. forces should leverage complementary sensing platforms: existing capabilities such as high‑frequency mine‑hunting sonar and emerging expeditionary sensing platforms, including photoacoustic systems deployed from unmanned assets, can provide pre‑mission cueing and environmental characterization to preserve undersea access. To offset AI‑targeting advantages without physical clearance, US forces should prioritize electronic attack techniques—jamming, spoofing, and deception—to degrade sensor inputs, disrupt autonomous decision‑making, and create localized maneuver windows in contested undersea battlespaces.

Conclusion

Since 2017, Beijing has continued to pursue AI-enhanced military capabilities with the formalization of the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, as well as exploiting U.S. naval vulnerabilities to gain uninterrupted access in the region and deter foreign intervention. The PLAN’s military research indicates that the state will not only continue to illicitly militarize the Islands despite persistent sovereignty claims but also leverage the unique subsea domain of the region and emerging technology to create a kill zone, operating in tandem to restrict U.S. undersea maneuver, degrade situational awareness, and challenge freedom of navigation within acoustically complex environments.

AI-optimized systems remain conceptual; current mines collectively offer a flexible and dynamic layered ecosystem that can be tailored to different depth regimes, trigger requirements, and operational conditions. Although little is known about the general characteristics of Chinese naval mine infrastructure, MAFOS-1 is described as an autonomous search-and-identification mine with a rudimentary ability to classify limited information while retaining semi-autonomous mobility. This information suggests a high likelihood that future iterations of AI-enabled mines could integrate adaptive sensing and selective engagement capabilities, thereby obfuscate U.S. undersea operations and constraining the freedom of maneuverability in contested areas.

Tags: aI-intelligentized naval mines, Chinese Navy (PLAN), naval warfare

About The Author

• 
  
• Catherine Marie Abbott
• Catherine Marie Abbott is a graduate student in Security Policy Studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, specializing in defense strategy and intelligence analysis. She served as a congressional staff assistant and caseworker, focusing on national security policy, and currently works as an intelligence analyst, developing generative AI tools for intelligence production and research on illicit trafficking networks. Her research primarily focuses on military installations, maritime logistics, and emerging defense technologies.
• ***The views and opinions expressed by her do not reflect or represent those her employer or affiliated organizations.***

15.  Recalibrating U.S. Intelligence Strategy for an Uncertain Global Order

​Summary:

The article argues U.S. intelligence faces rising uncertainty from a more contested strategic environment, accelerating technology competition, and eroding faith in rules and institutions, increasing the risk and cost of strategic surprise. As the administration prepares a new National Intelligence Strategy aligned with the 2025 National Security Strategy and 2026 National Defense Strategy, the authors propose four priority adaptations. First, elevate leaders’ public statements and historical narratives as baseline indicators of intent, while separating long-term aims from near-term deception. Second, map elite ecosystems across states and non-state actors, especially in frontier technologies. Third, analyze cross-theater dynamics that reshape deterrence and escalation. Fourth, treat time horizons as an analytic variable to guide warning, sequencing, and resource choices.

Recalibrating U.S. Intelligence Strategy for an Uncertain Global Order

warontherocks.com ·  February 17, 2026

Alexander Bick and Philip Potter

February 17, 2026

https://warontherocks.com/2026/02/recalibrating-u-s-intelligence-strategy-for-an-uncertain-global-order/

In the wake of 9/11, the newly established Office of the Director of National Intelligence produced the nation’s first National Intelligence Strategy, a document explicitly intended to guide reforms to the intelligence community and help prevent another terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland. The challenges U.S. intelligence faces today are no less dramatic. While crises in Ukraine, Iran, and Venezuela have each been driven by their own internal logics, together they reflect profound shifts in the balance and nature of power as a new international order begins to take shape. These shifts — a more contested strategic environment; accelerating technology competition; and eroding faith in international rules, norms, and institutions — have significantly increased uncertainty in world politics and elevated the risk and potential costs of strategic surprise.

The Florentine diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli famously warned that fortune favors those who prepare. The Trump administration has already laid out its foreign and defense priorities in the 2025 National Security and 2026 National Defense Strategies. As the administration works to complete an accompanying National Intelligence Strategy, we argue that the most urgent adaptations for U.S. intelligence cluster around four mutually reinforcing themes: elevating leader statements as indicators of intent, better mapping elite ecosystems, focusing additional attention on cross-theater dynamics, and treating time horizons as an analytic variable.

BECOME A MEMBER

Leaders Often Mean What They Say

National security decisions frequently hinge on judgments of intent. Too often, ambitious or threatening rhetoric has been discounted as diplomatic posturing or propaganda meant for a domestic audience. But in a world where states are more aggressive and both global and regional powers are testing the limits of their influence, public pronouncements should be taken more seriously.

To be clear, in many cases, leaders’ statements have been visible and actively debated within the intelligence community. The problem is one of analytic prioritization under uncertainty: how much weight to assign to declaratory rhetoric relative to material capabilities, past behavior, institutional constraints, and the strong incentives leaders face to posture, bluff, or deceive. In the past, discounting public statements has often been defensible. Nationalist rhetoric is noisy, leaders frequently misrepresent their intentions about timing and means, and intelligence organizations are rightly wary of allowing adversary rhetoric to set analytic agendas. When resources and attention are finite, privileging observable capabilities and near-term indicators has been a rational response.

The challenge today is that structural changes in the international system have weakened many of the assumptions that once justified this weighting. As institutional constraints erode, balances of power shift, personalist leadership expands, and ideological and historical narratives become more tightly coupled to policy, the cost of discounting leaders’ own words has risen. Statements that once appeared aspirational or rhetorical increasingly function as commitments — both to domestic audiences and to elite coalitions whose support leaders require to act.

Russia’s war in Ukraine provides a powerful illustration. In the fall of 2021, the U.S. intelligence community correctly anticipated that President Vladimir Putin was preparing a large-scale military assault. This has rightly been celebrated as a major intelligence success. Still, the intelligence community’s conclusion emerged only after specific intelligence on Moscow’s plans became available. Earlier indicators of Putin’s intentions, including his lengthy essay “On the Historical Unity of Russian and Ukrainian People,” published that summer, raised alarm bells but did not convince analysts or policymakers that a Russian invasion was imminent.

In hindsight, Moscow telegraphed its objectives and willingness to use force to achieve them well in advance. U.S. officials already recognized the Russian elite’s obsession with Ukraine in the early 1990s. On multiple occasions, Putin and other senior Russian officials offered concrete descriptions of the steps Russia would take to prevent Ukraine’s westward drift. As early as 2003, for example, Putin reportedly threatened Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych that if he signed an association agreement with the European Union, Russia would occupy Crimea, the Donbas, and much of southeastern Ukraine. Putin’s famous 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference placed these threats in the larger context of perceived “provocations” in Russia’s near abroad and an explicit goal to reassert an independent Russia foreign policy.

Despite these warnings, as well as the recognition that Russia had taken important steps to modernize its military and intelligence services, U.S. officials were caught flat-footed by Putin’s decision to annex Crimea in 2014 and the deployment of Russian special forces in the Donbas the following year. A similar dynamic played out in Syria, where the United States failed to anticipate that Russia would directly intervene in the war in the fall of 2015. Here again, Russian officials sent repeated signals, including that preserving President Bashar al Assad’s government was essential to regional stability and that they viewed the regime’s disorderly collapse as a direct threat to Russia’s interests. But U.S. officials discounted these statements, assessing that Russia would limit itself to providing Syria with material, financial, and other support.

In both cases — Syria and Ukraine — U.S. assessments overweighted past precedent and underestimated Putin’s risk tolerance, especially his willingness to use force when he concluded that he had exhausted other means of achieving his clearly and repeatedly stated policy goals.

The Chinese Communist Party has been equally blunt about its policy objectives with respect to Taiwan, the South China Sea, and technological competition. President Xi Jinping and members of the Politburo Standing Committee have consistently described “national rejuvenation” as inseparable from unification with Taiwan, often tying elements of this goal to specific milestones, such as the centenary of the People’s Liberation Army in 2027 and China in 2049. People’s Liberation Army white papers and doctrinal publications explicitly identify any declaration of Taiwanese independence as a red line that would spur conflict, and they stress that they will use force if peaceful reunification becomes impossible. Chinese defense and foreign policy officials have asserted similarly expansive claims over the South China Sea.

Recent experience in the economic sphere provides a cautionary tale that informs how the intelligence community should interpret these statements. Throughout the 2010s, Chinese leaders’ calls for self-reliance in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and other dual-use technologies were widely dismissed because analysts assumed China would be unwilling or unable to endure the trade-offs required to make real progress. Yet those supposedly aspirational goals soon gave way to sweeping industrial policies and a willingness to accept “good-enough” production standards, enabling breakthroughs such as domestic 7-nanometer chips and delivering market leadership in key sectors.

A particularly revealing dimension of foreign leaders’ statements is the way they invoke the past. Decision-makers nearly always anchor foreign policy choices in personal and national narratives about their place in history, but for totalitarian leaders, rewriting the past is essential to legitimating their rule. At a moment of rising nationalism, when leaders are increasingly rejecting international institutions and norms — along with the teleology towards free-market democracy implicit in them — historical narratives are likely to provide more important analytic insights.

Shifts in the substance or emphasis of historical narratives can reveal changes in strategic thinking and, in some cases, foreshadow the timing of major policy initiatives. Sensitivity to these shifts can enhance warning and help U.S. officials calibrate deterrent signals. An uptick in references to periods of humiliation or triumph, for example, may signal a greater willingness to accept risk.

Bluff and bluster will remain staples of diplomatic and public discourse, so U.S. assessments cannot and should not take every statement at face value. While public statements can reveal broad strategic intent, they are far less reliable indicators of near-term or tactical objectives. Leaders may sincerely articulate long-term goals yet deliberately misrepresent the timing, scale, or means of their pursuit. Putin, for example, has repeatedly lied about imminent military action — assuring President Barack Obama that Russia would not seize Crimea and telling German Chancellor Olaf Scholz he would pull back troops just days before invading Ukraine. The challenge for analysts is to distinguish between disinformation about immediate actions and consistent patterns in how leaders describe their ultimate aims. The former may obscure warning in the short run, but the latter often provides a durable guide to a leader’s underlying strategic trajectory.

Power Increasingly Resides in Elite Ecosystems

The nexus between national security, technology, and economic competition is more important today than at any time in recent memory. There are significant implications for the intelligence community, including shifting the balance between state and non-state actors as targets for intelligence collection and elevating the role of elite networks in analyzing strategic risks and opportunities. The clear implication is that competitive advantage will depend less on any single collection discipline than on integration. The intelligence community should continue to invest urgently in fine-grained regional and domain human intelligence alongside exquisite signals intelligence, but pair those capabilities with systematic network mapping of elites, firms, intermediaries, and technical communities. Doing so will allow analysts to connect signals across state and non-state actors; distinguish durable influence from noise; and anticipate where leverage, escalation, and opportunity are most likely to emerge.

Confronting the People’s Republic of China poses a fundamentally different challenge for the United States than did past great-power rivalries. Even at its height, the Soviet Union could not muster the economic heft to compete with the United States and its allies on equal terms, and Cold War leaders waged their struggle primarily through rival blocs between which there was only limited economic or technological exchange. Power was confined mainly within state institutions, with leading-edge, transformational technologies — most notably nuclear weapons — emerging from government laboratories. This structure, while dangerous, created relatively bounded arenas of competition that intelligence agencies could target and track.

Today, the sources of power and innovation are more diffuse. This requires the intelligence community to grapple with elite networks that interact with but remain distinct from governments — and frequently cross national boundaries. Especially in the case of emerging technologies, these actors’ decisions can have tremendous implications for U.S. national security. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and other frontier fields that will define the future balance of power are driven by private corporations, investors, universities, and regulators, not solely by governments.

The intelligence community must shift its approach in response to these changes, building on the recent reorganization of the Central Intelligence Agency. Across advanced technology, supply chains, finance, and standards-setting, non-state actors such as private firms, research institutions, sub-federal governments, industry consortia, and transnational networks are exerting ever greater strategic influence. A detailed understanding of these entities and their place within a broader ecosystem has become essential to evaluating modern state capacity.

U.S. competitiveness will therefore rest in part on the intelligence community’s ability to penetrate and map elite networks. Doing so will identify chokepoints and channels of influence that can help distinguish between durable and fragile connections. Just as importantly, the intelligence community can provide insight into where adversary ecosystems are overextended or brittle, allowing decision-makers to target seams and avoid costly head-on contests.

China has gone furthest, aggressively working to knit together ecosystems that link capital and innovation in mutually reinforcing ways, while simultaneously reinforcing it with strong party-state control. Its approach fuses political authority with state-owned enterprises, venture capital, and academic institutions to direct capital toward strategic industries, capture global standard-setting processes, and insulate itself from foreign pressure. China’s efforts to dominate 5G, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence demonstrate how ecosystems, rather than single institutions, generate competitive advantage. For the intelligence community, this means tracking not only headline policies like Made in China 2025, but also the informal ties and flows of capital and talent that bind China’s innovation machine.

These dynamics intersect with a second challenge for the intelligence community: as technological competitors converge toward parity, the analytic delta shrinks. With the performance gap between the United States and its competitors narrowing, assessing relative capability becomes substantially more difficult. The unanticipated performance of the DeepSeek-R1 AI model, released in January 2025, provides a clear illustration. More generally, small shifts in capital allocation, research talent, or supply-chain inputs can enable breakthroughs that are not visible from traditional state-centric intelligence sources. Tracking elite ecosystems helps illuminate these inflection points by revealing where non-state actors may be enabling or accelerating progress that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The growing importance of technology also requires refreshing assessments related to Taiwan, where elite networks and traditional security considerations are now intersecting in new ways. The island’s role as the center of advanced semiconductor manufacturing means that a potential conflict would not only disrupt global technology supply chains but also reverberate through tightly interwoven networks of firms, investors, and experts in ways that are hard to anticipate, amplifying the strategic stakes and potential for disruption.

Taiwan’s vital importance to the race to develop artificial general intelligence could also alter Beijing’s timeline for addressing the island’s status, especially if Chinese officials conclude that they are falling behind. These dynamics could shift Beijing’s calculus about how to exert control, making indirect approaches such as quarantine or other coercive measures appear more attractive than a full-scale amphibious assault — both to increase Beijing’s influence over the flow of chips and to avoid significant damage to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry that would carry negative consequences for China’s own economic and technology networks.

Russia’s elite ecosystems are more constrained, but Moscow has shown it can leverage them opportunistically. Its networks of oligarchs, energy firms, intelligence services, private military companies, and criminal organizations — both within Russia and along its periphery — provide flexible tools for projecting influence abroad. Sanctions have revealed both the strengths and vulnerabilities of this model: while Russia can rapidly mobilize shadow networks to evade controls, it has bled talent in key sectors, narrowing potential pathways to diversify and sustain economic growth over the long term. Understanding how Russian elite ecosystems adapt — drawing down reserves, mobilizing the private sector to support the war effort, de-privatizing assets to ensure loyalty, shifting resources through illicit finance, and deepening cooperation with China, North Korea, and Iran — is essential to gauging the durability of Moscow’s influence. The structural weaknesses of these networks also help to explain why Russia lags as a serious competitor in critical domains such as advanced technology and global finance.

Friends, partners, and neutral states are also building elite ecosystems. In partnership with the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are harnessing energy resources to make the Gulf a leading technology hub, reshaping the Middle East. European regulators and Dutch, Japanese, and Korean technology firms all play outsized roles in shaping the trajectory of global technology competition. To strengthen coalitions in key areas, such as energy and technology, and prevent adversaries from exploiting gaps, the intelligence community must understand the structure, incentives, and vulnerabilities of both allied and neutral ecosystems.

This approach builds on earlier holistic and net-assessment traditions but adapts them for an era in which power is increasingly dynamic and distributed. While elements of such analysis already exist across the intelligence community, Commerce, Treasury, the Defense Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, and other agencies, they are often fragmented and lack an integrating framework. Systematic ecosystem mapping would both sharpen analysis and expand collection opportunities, while highlighting where real leverage and control ultimately reside.

Cross-Theater Dynamics Are Reshaping Deterrence and Escalation

The rise of regionalism and parity among major powers has reshaped how many policymakers and analysts conceptualize contemporary competition. As great powers assert privileged interests in proximate regions — whether Russia in its near abroad or China in its maritime periphery — there is a growing temptation to treat theaters as bounded and separable. This perspective is misleading. Even in an increasingly “spheres of influence” world, cross-theater dynamics are becoming more, not less, important, as competitors exploit linkages across regions to manage risk, stretch adversaries, and alter escalation dynamics. Russia’s close coordination with North Korea in its war against Ukraine — and especially the surprise deployment of North Korean soldiers and military engineers in Europe — illustrates how alignment across theaters can offset localized weakness and complicate U.S. and allied responses. These dynamics present challenges for U.S. policymakers that the intelligence community must prepare them to meet. At the same time, deliberately leveraging or introducing cross-theater linkages can create opportunities for the United States.

Engaging competitors where they are best prepared is often the most costly and least effective option. Horizontal escalation, generated through cross-theater dynamics, can create space to restore deterrence on more favorable terms. For example, Chinese planners worry about “chain reaction warfare” — the possibility that regional conflict, such as a conflict involving Taiwan, could trigger additional, concurrent military actions by other adversaries.

Keeping Chinese leaders off balance through calibrated pressure elsewhere — e.g., in Xinjiang, Burma, or along the Sino-Indian Line of Actual Control — may alter their calculus, thereby raising the costs of aggression without requiring vertical escalation. To provide a genuine advantage, the intelligence community must illuminate where cross-theater leverage exists, the triggers that will activate it, and the tradeoffs these choices entail.

Of course, competitors will draw — and indeed are already drawing — from the same playbook. Russia’s growing reliance on China, North Korea, and Iran to sustain the war in Ukraine underscores how cross-theater relationships have become essential to its survival. These partnerships stretch U.S. resources, complicate alliance responses, and erode American credibility. They also raise important questions about what Moscow’s partners expect in return and how that assistance may alter existing analytic assumptions about their capabilities and intentions. The potential for Russia to share advanced submarine and missile technology is particularly worrying.

At the same time, Russia’s declining economic and demographic base may compel it to employ cross-theater disruption as a substitute for traditional strengths, generating volatility and unpredictability. For the intelligence community, this means tracking how opportunistic partnerships can prolong Moscow’s endurance in Europe and complicate U.S. commitments elsewhere. At times, cross-theater dynamics may also create openings for U.S. interests. A clear example is Syria, where Russian commitments in Ukraine and Israeli attacks on Iran and its proxies left Assad’s government exposed to renewed internal opposition.

The Chinese and Russian cases highlight the importance of examining cross-theater dynamics as a distinct driver of state behavior in its own right. The intelligence community already devotes significant attention to tracking and identifying opportunities to frustrate alignment between U.S. adversaries. By institutionalizing cross-theater mapping, the intelligence community can augment this analysis by better anticipating sequencing, identifying seams where horizontal escalation could provide leverage, and providing U.S. policymakers with the options needed to rebalance costs and restore deterrence.

Thinking across theaters does not mean reducing focus. Since resources are limited, the U.S. intelligence strategy will rightly emphasize prioritization. But it must also recognize that linking problem sets across theaters can be a more efficient tool for achieving U.S. objectives. Offsetting disadvantages in one theater by creating leverage in another is a classic element of strategy. By tracking, identifying, and assessing these opportunities, the intelligence community will help ensure that policymakers allocate limited resources to maximize the strategic impact of U.S. policy choices. This, of course, must be carefully calibrated, for fear that any act of foreign adventurism might subsequently be framed as part of a broader global struggle to dilute or counter adversarial influence.

Time Horizons Matter

Time is not a neutral backdrop to competition. Competitor time horizons shape outcomes and intersect with U.S. capabilities and choices in intricate ways that require dedicated analysis. Here again, the issue is not that the intelligence community lacks awareness of competing timelines, but that analytic frameworks often privilege long-run structural trends or near-term warning indicators, leaving less room for the compressed, politically driven horizons that increasingly shape autocratic decision-making.

U.S. policymakers and planners face dual horizons: the immediate demands of day-to-day competition and the larger requirements of protracted strategic rivalry. Short-term gains can come at the expense of long-term endurance, just as delaying action can increase near-term vulnerability and multiply future challenges. The intelligence community is charged with providing timely intelligence that delivers decision advantage. To do so, it must communicate not only what crises or rivalries are unfolding, but also how long they are likely to last, what their probable culmination points will be, and how U.S., allied, and adversary actions might alter those timelines.

Reaching these conclusions requires a disciplined approach to scenario-building that explicitly incorporates time as a variable. As the war in Ukraine demonstrated, this is distinct from the challenge of providing early warning. The United States had months to get ready for Russia’s full-scale invasion, but the expectation that Russia would quickly seize Kyiv left U.S. policymakers underprepared to address the industrial and financial requirements of a protracted conventional war of attrition in eastern Ukraine, or to anticipate how Russia’s parallel requirements for such a contest would drive Moscow into the arms of Pyongyang and Tehran.

Sophisticated analysis of time horizons is particularly crucial with respect to China, the most important long-term U.S. competitor. The United States would take radically different approaches to a potential confrontation with China depending on whether it occurred in 2027, 2035, or 2049. Moving too quickly to “war footing” measures may undermine longer-term foundations of advantage, including innovation, economic growth, and alliance resilience. Conversely, overinvesting in long-term strength while underpreparing for short-term shocks leaves the United States open to coercion and surprise.

Managing this balance requires clarity on temporal horizons. Intelligence must also illuminate where competitors themselves are likely to stumble — whether by overextending in the near term or underinvesting in the long term. Given the extent to which protracted conflicts test economic (not just military) strength, it also requires a sharper focus on national resources and leaders’ ability to mobilize and augment them over the medium- to long-term.

​​This challenge takes on particular salience in the context of the most recent National Defense Strategy, which emphasizes deterring China through sustained strength rather than immediate confrontation. That approach implicitly rests on extended time horizons: preserving U.S. advantages in innovation, alliance cohesion, and economic resilience while managing near-term risks short of war. For the intelligence community, this places a premium on analysis that clarifies how Chinese leaders weigh short-term opportunities against longer-term objectives, how quickly they believe relative power is shifting, and under what conditions they may conclude that delay is too costly or no longer serves their interests. Without disciplined attention to these temporal judgments, policymakers risk either overreacting to short-term signals in ways that erode long-term advantage or underestimating the pressures that could compress Beijing’s timelines.

Structural pressures, including slowing growth, demographic decline, and external technology chokepoints, further compress time horizons, creating incentives for opportunism and risk-taking in the near term. Personalism under Xi exacerbates this tension: where Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping embodied strategic patience, Xi increasingly prioritizes ideological campaigns and legacy politics that may sacrifice long-term resilience for short-term political or strategic gains. Underlying this is biology — Xi and Putin both calibrate their options not only against official timelines but also against the actuarial realities of human lifespans, a point underscored by their recent musings about organ transplants and immortality. For China, the result is leadership that projects long-range ambitions but often acts with a compressed sense of urgency. This dynamic can lead to miscalculation.

Moscow also faces trade-offs between its long-term ambitions — reasserting great-power status, weakening NATO, and securing influence in its near abroad — and more immediate imperatives. In many respects, this is a challenge of Putin’s own making. While the Russian president succeeded in turning the corner from the chaos of the 1990s and modernizing Russia’s military, his major foreign policy initiatives have alienated neighbors, isolated Russia internationally, and narrowed near-term options. Finland and Sweden joining NATO and Russia’s slowly ebbing influence in Central Asia are salient examples of the reverberations of these actions. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine sharpened this tension still further: while framed as a generational struggle for national survival, sanctions, battlefield attrition, and increasing dependence on former clients have undercut Russia’s capacity to sustain protracted conflict without sacrificing long-term goals.

Putin’s highly personalist rule means that decisions are shaped less by institutionalized planning than by short-term calculations aimed at avoiding an embarrassing military loss, preserving regime security, and demonstrating relevance on the global stage. In today’s Russia, there is no parallel to the Chinese Communist Party to temper short-term personalism. This combination of expansive long-term goals with acute short-term vulnerability creates volatility; Moscow often signals grand horizons but is structurally compelled to engage in opportunistic, risky behavior. For the intelligence community, recognizing where Russia’s rhetoric outstrips its capacity is critical to avoiding overestimation of Moscow’s staying power and to identifying opportunities where short-term overreach can accelerate longer-term decline.

Autocracies are not uniformly long- or short-term planners; instead, their horizons shift based on idiosyncratic understandings of relative momentum and opportunity, as well as structural factors like leadership centralization, domestic constraints, and regime security. Incorporating these insights into the National Intelligence Strategy will enable the intelligence community to anticipate decision-making rhythms more effectively, identify when regimes are vulnerable, and provide policymakers with realistic assessments of how long rivalries and crises are likely to last — as well as how these timelines might be influenced.

Conclusion

The United States faces a rapidly evolving and increasingly uncertain international environment. Our call is not for mission creep, but for prioritization and economization. While these four themes are analytically distinct, their value lies in how they interact, pointing toward an intelligence posture that reallocates effort rather than expanding it. Treating leaders’ statements and historical narratives as baseline indicators of intent helps narrow the set of contingencies that require sustained attention, reducing the risk of diffuse monitoring. Ecosystem mapping, in turn, provides a way to focus collection and analysis on nodes that shape multiple problem sets simultaneously, rather than requiring parallel, siloed efforts. Cross-theater analysis helps identify where pressure in one domain can offset disadvantage in another, and to anticipate and address potential crises that could escalate in ways that directly threaten U.S. interests. Finally, explicit attention to time horizons further sharpens tradeoffs by clarifying when risks are likely to mature and when delay or sequencing can work to U.S. advantage. The result is an analytic framework that helps the intelligence community manage scarcity for the greatest marginal strategic return.

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Alexander Bick is associate professor of practice at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, a Miller Center faculty senior fellow, and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He previously served on the National Security Council staff and at the U.S. Department of State in the Biden and Obama administrations.

Philip B.K. Potter is professor of leadership and public policy at the Frank Batten School at the University of Virginia. He is executive director of the National Security Data and Policy Institute and has served as a University Expert in the Intelligence Community and a Senior Advisor in the Department of Defense.

Image: Midjourney

warontherocks.com · Grace Parcover · February 17, 2026

16. Panama’s Hidden Chokepoint: Tocumen and the Convergence of Mobility Power

​Summary:

Panama’s strategic leverage is shifting from canal locks to integrated air, sea, and data systems, with Tocumen International Airport emerging as the keystone of hemispheric mobility. The article argues influence now accrues through interoperability among passenger data, cargo manifests, customs databases, security software, and port scheduling, creating persistent visibility and leverage regardless of physical ownership. It notes Panama’s Supreme Court voided key port concessions tied to Panama Ports Company in January 2026, showing how ownership can change quickly while digital integrations endure. The piece warns “gray-zone” leverage can arise from proprietary software and maintenance lock-in, including Huawei-linked infrastructure, and recommends US priority on digital audits, open-architecture interoperability standards, and a hemispheric digital common operating picture.

Panama’s Hidden Chokepoint: Tocumen and the Convergence of Mobility Power

warontherocks.com  · February 17, 2026

Ron MacCammon

February 17, 2026

https://warontherocks.com/2026/02/panamas-hidden-chokepoint-tocumen-and-the-convergence-of-mobility-power/

The most consequential infrastructure decisions in Panama today are often not made at the locks of the canal, but in conference rooms where aviation security software, cargo-routing platforms, and port-scheduling systems converge. Sustained observation of Panama’s logistics and regulatory environment — reinforced by long-standing professional relationships within its institutions — points to a shift in how influence is accumulating.

Panama’s strategic relevance is no longer confined to maritime geography. It is increasingly rooted in the integration of air, sea, and data systems, with Tocumen International Airport emerging as the keystone of that convergence — a shift unfolding neither overnight nor generationally, but across the next five to ten years of infrastructure modernization cycles.

For the United States, the immediate priority is visibility before hardware: establishing a hemispheric digital common operating picture that synchronizes currently fragmented interagency data and audits existing service agreements and maintenance ecosystems at Tocumen to identify proprietary “black-box” dependencies in passenger and cargo flows. This is an undertaking measured more in interagency coordination than new capital outlays.

External analysis frequently centers on port ownership, canal tolls, or shipping premiums. Inside Panama, however, the more consequential debates increasingly revolve around interoperability: how passenger data, cargo manifests, and maritime schedules now intersect in shared digital architectures. What appears to be modernization is, in practice, a restructuring of how mobility and information flow across the hemisphere.

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Tocumen as a Strategic Node

Tocumen is more than a transit airport. It is the principal aviation gateway linking North and South America and one of the region’s busiest transfer hubs, processing millions of passengers annually while serving as a critical junction for time-sensitive cargo, as reflected in its published traffic statistics and expansion plans.

Its strategic importance lies not only in scale but in the layering of systems that govern movement: biometric identity verification, cargo-tracking platforms, customs databases, and integrated security networks that increasingly synchronize with maritime logistics schedules and freight forwarders.

Individually, these technologies are commercially routine. Collectively, they produce continuous visibility into who and what is moving through the hemisphere. Cargo manifests correlate with port arrivals; passenger screening systems interface with customs authorities; logistics software aligns aviation and maritime timetables. The result is not ownership of infrastructure, but positional awareness within mobility systems — a form of leverage that persists regardless of who controls a terminal or concession.

This convergence is rarely emphasized in strategic literature, which tends to treat airports and seaports as distinct domains. In Panama, they are becoming operationally interdependent. The airport’s data flows increasingly inform maritime logistics decisions, and port scheduling reflects aviation-driven cargo patterns. Influence therefore accumulates across the network rather than at any single site.

The Canal and Ports as Extensions of a Larger System

The Panama Canal remains indispensable, but its strategic weight now derives as much from its integration into digital and logistical systems as from its physical geography. Environmental pressures, including prolonged drought cycles and water-management constraints that forced transit reductions in 2023–2024, elevated the role of allocation algorithms and scheduling software alongside traditional transit capacity.

Access is shaped not only by water levels and slot availability, but by the data systems that prioritize and synchronize movement across sectors.

Port terminals at Balboa and Cristóbal function as the maritime anchors of this network. Their significance lies less in sovereignty than in how they interface with customs databases, cargo-tracking platforms, and intermodal logistics software. The canal, in this sense, is no longer merely a passage for ships — it is one component of a hemispheric mobility architecture that increasingly depends on shared information systems linking air and sea corridors.

Legal Upheaval and the Limits of Ownership

Recent judicial decisions voiding longstanding port concessions underscored how fragile physical ownership can be. In January 2026, Panama’s Supreme Court declared key port concession arrangements unconstitutional due to exclusive privileges and tax exemptions tied to Panama Ports Company (a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings), triggering regulatory and contractual upheaval.

Interim operations have continued under alternative management arrangements, including global terminal operators such as APM Terminals/Maersk, while arbitration and legal challenges remain ongoing — a development widely viewed as a U.S.-aligned “physical win” that nonetheless leaves underlying digital integrations intact.

Contractual privileges and concession terms that once appeared stable were abruptly overturned through constitutional rulings and regulatory scrutiny. The episode revealed a structural distinction: Control over infrastructure can shift quickly, but control over data integration and system interoperability is far more durable.

Operational continuity was preserved through interim management arrangements, yet the broader lesson was systemic. Legal sovereignty, domestic politics, and investment security can all disrupt ownership models. What persists — and what often escapes public debate — is the digital scaffolding that binds ports, airports, and customs authorities into a continuous flow of information.

Digital Infrastructure and Gray-Zone Leverage

Influence in Panama increasingly operates through technical integration rather than overt political pressure. Surveillance platforms, biometric systems, and logistics software rarely announce themselves as strategic instruments, yet they shape the environment in which decisions are made. Their effect is cumulative. Each database connection, each synchronized schedule, and each interoperability standard embeds a layer of dependency that is difficult to reverse without economic disruption.

This is gray-zone competition expressed through infrastructure rather than confrontation. It unfolds incrementally, below the threshold of crisis, and often appears indistinguishable from modernization. The strategic consequence is not domination but persistent visibility and operational leverage within the systems that move people, goods, and information across borders — a dynamic widely discussed in analyses of digital infrastructure competition and the “Digital Silk Road.”

Chinese state-linked firms and financing institutions recognized the strategic value of logistics interoperability and data-driven infrastructure earlier than many Western counterparts and invested accordingly in port technology, telecommunications backbones, and integrated logistics platforms across multiple regions.

In Panama, this has included Huawei establishing a regional hub for telecommunications and logistics support, supplying backbone infrastructure that underpins government and private operations. Through Digital Silk Road initiatives, Chinese firms have bundled port-management software, biometric security systems, and surveillance equipment at Tocumen, often via commercial contracts with maintenance ecosystems that create proprietary lock-in. Despite recent U.S.-supported efforts to replace certain Huawei-linked systems, these layered maintenance and software dependencies remain difficult and costly to unwind.

The concern is not that any single platform is inherently malicious, but that layered dependencies emerge when hardware, software, and maintenance ecosystems converge around proprietary systems. Even when visible ownership or concession arrangements change, embedded digital infrastructure often remains, creating continuity of influence that outlasts formal control of physical assets.

Recent efforts by Panama and its partners to replace or restrict certain foreign technology platforms demonstrate that governments can reduce exposure, but these initiatives also underscore how difficult and costly it is to unwind layered digital ecosystems once they have taken root— often making competition within existing architectures more practical than wholesale replacement.

While port concessions and terminal contracts can be voided or renegotiated, embedded data systems and operational familiarity prove far more durable. This creates a temporal and structural advantage: not control of assets, but influence within the networks that coordinate mobility itself. The competitive asymmetry does not stem from ownership, but from early integration and sustained presence in the digital layers that govern movement.

In a moment of geopolitical or economic crisis, even modest influence within logistics software, communications networks, or maintenance ecosystems could introduce delays, friction, or prioritization shifts that affect the movement of critical cargo — not through overt shutdowns, but through the cumulative effect of technical dependencies that are difficult to unwind quickly.

The largest marginal gains for the United States, therefore, lie not in constructing new facilities, but in standardizing the connective software that links existing ones — mandating open-architecture interoperability so digital standards, rather than concessions, become the more durable layer of influence.

Domestic Investment and Internal Friction

Panama’s modernization efforts add complexity. Large-scale water-management initiatives tied to canal sustainability — including the proposed Río Indio reservoir project, which could require the relocation of more than 2000 rural families, with census and relocation planning ongoing as of 2025-2026 — illustrate how infrastructure development can quickly become a national political issue. Projects intended to sustain canal operations and national growth often generate domestic debate over land use, environmental impact, compensation mechanisms, and contractual legitimacy.

These internal frictions expose political seams that external actors can influence through financing terms, litigation, or regulatory partnerships, though Panamanian institutions retain decisive leverage over vendor selection and standards enforcement. Institutional credibility — transparency, procurement discipline, and judicial independence — becomes a strategic variable as much as an administrative one.

Conclusion: Mobility Architecture as Power

The Panama Canal remains vital, but it is no longer the sole determinant of leverage. The convergence of aviation, maritime logistics, and digital infrastructure — with Tocumen International Airport at its center — defines a new form of influence rooted in access, resilience, and information visibility rather than formal ownership.

For the United States, this convergence carries direct implications for force-mobility planning, sanctions-enforcement visibility, supply-chain security, and alliance logistics reliability across the hemisphere. Many existing U.S. tools, however, remain oriented toward a legacy concession model that treats airports and seaports as distinct silos of physical sovereignty; competitors increasingly operate within a unified data environment where aviation flows inform maritime decisions, requiring a shift from protecting individual assets to securing the network itself.

In practical terms, this means beginning with a digital audit and baseline of existing systems, yielding its greatest returns through interoperability standards rather than concession wins, and moving beyond a physical-first security posture that limits the effective use of financial tools for digital-first investment.

Recognizing that other powers have already secured early-mover advantages in digital logistics ecosystems, the U.S. government should prioritize interoperability standards, trusted-partner infrastructure financing, and sustained visibility into hemispheric mobility networks — moving from asset protection toward network assurance.

Panama thus functions less as an anomaly than an early test case in a mobility model increasingly relevant from Suez to Singapore and from Dubai’s port-aviation nexus to the Strait of Malacca.

In this environment, power accrues to those who understand how systems interlock: how cargo databases inform port schedules, how passenger verification platforms intersect with customs authorities, and how legal or ownership changes ripple through data networks that continue to operate. The future of competition in Panama will be shaped less by who holds a concession and more by who shapes the integrated air-sea-data systems that increasingly govern hemispheric movement.

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Ron MacCammon, Ed.D., is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer and former State Department political-military officer. He taught international relations at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served as defense attaché in Panama from 2002 to 2005. He lived in Panama for more than 15 years and currently writes on governance, institutional reform, and gray-zone conflicts. His work draws on more than 30 years of field experience in Latin America, Afghanistan, Asia, and Africa.

Image: Midjourney

warontherocks.com · Grace Parcover · February 17, 2026

17.The Modern King of Battle: Creating the Army’s Integrated Fires Complex

Summary:

The article argues the Army must reimagine fires for a battlefield where ubiquitous sensing, hypersonics, and electronic warfare erase sanctuary and make the globe a weapons engagement zone. It proposes shifting from a sequential kill chain to an “integrated fires complex” that converges offensive and defensive fires to win the counter-C2, counterreconnaissance, and counterfires fights, then enable maneuver. It calls for an offensive mindset that treats fires as the key warfighting function, streamlined decision cycles beyond C5ISRT, and a unified system integrating artillery, long-range effects, manned and unmanned aviation, counter-UAS, launched effects, and electronic warfare. It stresses multidimensional deconfliction from ground to low-earth orbit and a resilient C2 “kill web,” using AI-enabled NGC2 to automate calculations and accelerate decisions with human launch approval.

C​omment; It is a shame we lost General Mingus as the Vice but he is still able to make great contributions. He can spend a lot more time thinking and writing about our profession now.

The Modern King of Battle: Creating the Army’s Integrated Fires Complex - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · James Mingus · February 17, 2026

James Mingus, John Weissenborn and Peter Sulzona | 02.17.26

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-modern-king-of-battle-creating-the-armys-integrated-fires-complex/

Editor’s note: This article is the third in an eight-part series led by retired General James Mingus, the thirty-ninth vice chief of staff of the Army, on transforming the Army to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s battlefield. You can read other articles in the series here.

In 1981, Private Mingus, an Army artilleryman, relied on a $100 handheld calculator to compute fire missions on a linear, ground-based battlefield. Today, that linear fight is a thing of the past, just as the handy HP calculator has been replaced by digital systems with a billion times the compute power. The modern battlespace, from the plains of Ukraine to the littorals of the Indo-Pacific, is a dense web of thousands of sensors and shooters deployed from the ground to low-earth orbit as well as cyberspace.

To prevail in this environment, our Army must do more than just evolve. It must reimagine the fires warfighting function and move from a rigid kill chain to an integrated fires complex: a holistic framework that converges offensive and defensive fires and will win the counter-C2 (command and control) fight, win the counterreconnaissance fight, win the counterfires fight, and rapidly destroy the key systems the enemy needs to succeed.

The End of Sanctuary

For generations, we saw the battlefield in terms of lines and sectors. Today, ubiquitous sensing, hypersonic weapons, and electronic warfare have erased those lines, and the entire globe is now a weapons engagement zone. Preclusionary tactics, which deny an adversary options to maneuver or even initiate combat, have degraded the relevance of traditional geographic buffers. Sensors, from low-earth orbit satellites and swarms of drones to social media spotters, alert an adversary of friendly intentions or changes in posture. In return, adversaries can project power across continents instantaneously, denying our freedom of maneuver before the first boots hit the ground. We can no longer view fires as a supporting element in a sequential fight, but must prioritize an integrated approach to counter emerging threats, underpinned by a resilient communications architecture.

Achieving the Integrated Fires Complex

First, we need to establish an offensive mindset that designates fires as the key warfighting function. Soon, divisions will be able to strike out to five hundred kilometers with their organic capabilities, surpassing current sensing and maneuver ranges. This means winning the counter-C2, counterfires, and counterreconnaissance fight before introducing maneuver elements. We should move beyond the cumbersome C5ISRT (command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting) framework, to focus on streamlined, rapid, decisive actions that disrupt enemy decision cycles.

Synchronizing offensive and defensive fires in ways that converge domains and address the changing character of warfare is imperative. This is not simply about layering capabilities; it requires combining fire control and fire direction functions and creating a unified system that empowers leaders to think and act offensively from the outset. Convergence involves integrating a variety of capabilities into a single system: artillery, long-range hypersonics, manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), counter-UAS, launched effects, and electronic warfare, all supported by a network of terrestrial and space-based sensors.

Moreover, to be effective in this environment, we must reimagine how we deconflict airspace, maneuver elements, and conduct clearance of fires. This multidimensional maneuver box will extend our traditional ground maneuver control measures up to low-earth orbit, allowing us to deconflict joint platforms, manned and unmanned aviation, artillery, and effects across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Lastly, an integrated and seamless C2 architecture is required to pass sensor and shooter data across the kill web. A hypersonic threat moving at Mach 5 does not respect our organizational charts; it does not allow time for manual notification or deconfliction. The sensor that detects the threat must be the same system that cues the offensive counterstrike.

Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2), enhanced with AI, will provide the backbone for the robust, flexible command-and-control platform required to manage this complexity. Artificial intelligence will enable us to automate time-intensive processes to accelerate decision-making. AI can consider high-priority target lists, environmental factors, firing tables, and munitions data to calculate the appropriate munition and response in milliseconds, notifying humans only for final launch approval, to ensure ethical and strategic oversight.

The Way Forward

The convergence of offensive and defensive fires to dismantle the threat’s eyes, ears, and ability to fight, is a pivotal step to deterrence in the modern battlefield. Our mandate is to fuse thousands of nodes, creating a new geometry of warfare defined not by space and time, but by speed of decision. While the fundamentals of field artillery remain—and must be consistently reinforced through military education—the tools and tactics must evolve. The calculator of 1981 solved the single-digit problem; the integrated fires complex must be the new calculator that solves thousands of multidomain problems in the blink of an eye.

Retired General James Mingus served as the thirty-ninth vice chief of staff of the Army.

Colonel John Weissenborn is the acquisition advisor to the vice chief of staff of the Army.

Major Peter Sulzona is the public affairs officer to the vice chief of staff of the Army.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Sgt. Ezekieljay Correa, US Marine Corps

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mwi.westpoint.edu · James Mingus · February 17, 2026

18. The Back Brief: 'Bodyguard of Lies' — A tragic tale of hubris and missed opportunities

​Summary:

“Bodyguard of Lies” is a late-2025 documentary by Dan Krauss drawn from The Washington Post’s “Afghanistan Papers,” built on SIGAR interviews showing a gap between officials’ private assessments and public optimism about the war. Sean Naylor says the film delivers its core claim quickly but sometimes uses clips in arguably misleading ways, including a Mike Flynn quote truncated from a longer sentence and a Donald Rumsfeld “quagmires” line taken from an Iraq context. The film uses episodes like a 2008 airstrike killing children and the 2010 Kabul Bank collapse to illustrate civilian harm and corruption. Naylor praises its power but faults major omissions, especially Pakistan and ISI support to the Taliban, and says it underexplores early missed chances for political settlement and whether al-Qaida could have been targeted without a 20-year war.

The Back Brief: 'Bodyguard of Lies' — A tragic tale of hubris and missed opportunities

substack.com · Sean D. NaylorFeb 16, 2026∙ Paid

https://thehighside.substack.com/p/the-back-brief-bodyguard-of-lies

U.S. troops patrol in Afghanistan in a scene from “Bodyguard of Lies.”

“Bodyguard of Lies” is a documentary about the Afghan war that grew out of The Washington Post’s “The Afghanistan Papers” project and Post reporter Craig Whitlock’s similarly-titled book. Those works in turn owed much to Whitlock’s discovery of a trove of hundreds of interviews conducted by the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction with U.S. officials who assumed their words would not be made public. The interviews revealed a marked difference between what those officials said in private and what they said when the cameras were rolling. (It required two lawsuits by the Post to pry the interview recordings and transcripts from the grip of the U.S. government.)

Released in late 2025 and directed by Dan Krauss, the movie delivers its main message — that throughout the Afghan conflict U.S. officials lied to the American people about the progress of the war — in the first ten minutes. Given that Krauss has the recorded quotes from the SIGAR interviews available to contrast with the officials’ public comments, making that point effectively is the journalistic equivalent of scoring into an open goal.

Occasionally, however, the film uses clips in ways that are arguably misleading or out of context. For instance, then-Maj. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time senior military intelligence official in Afghanistan, is shown telling CBS News in 2009 that “we basically know what we’re doing out here,” quickly followed by a clip from his recorded SIGAR interview in which he says, “We’re basically fighting the wrong way.” But the former quote appears to be taken from a longer, slightly more nuanced sentence – “What we’ve got to do in 12 to 18 months is just show that we basically know what we’re doing out here.”

When the viewer sees then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying “I don’t do quagmires” in the early years of what would prove the longest war in U.S. history (and one that ended in humiliating defeat), it’s easy to chuckle wryly at his hubris. Except that Rumsfeld’s infamous quote, from a July 24, 2003, Pentagon news conference, was uttered in the context of Iraq, not Afghanistan. Surely the people behind “Bodyguard of Lies” could have found a similar comment from him about the actual subject of their documentary.

Throughout, the movie combines selections from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of film clips of U.S. officials talking about how well the war is going with gritty combat footage (although it’s not always clear whether the footage is from the year or place being discussed). When he delves into major issues that bedeviled the U.S. war effort, Krauss uses one or two examples to illustrate the wider point. For instance, a 2008 airstrike that killed scores of children in western Afghanistan exemplifies the uselessness of trying to win over the civilian population while simultaneously killing hundreds of them. (Retired Gen. David McKiernan, the senior U.S. general in Afghanistan at the time, bluntly says a senior special operations commander whom he declines to name lied to him about the incident.) Meanwhile, Krauss uses the 2010 collapse of Kabul Bank to highlight the corruption that blossomed as the United States flooded Afghanistan with billions of dollars.

Retired Gen. David McKiernan, in a still from “Bodyguard of Lies”

But “Bodyguard of Lies” derives much of its emotional heft from recent interviews the filmmakers conducted with a range of former officials like McKiernan, some of whom it also quotes from the SIGAR files. “There are times when you get in front of a camera, it’s not that you’re lying, but you’re going to paint a pretty good picture on the pig,” McKiernan tells the filmmakers, attempting to explain the disconnect between his repeated public attestations that progress was being made and the reality revealed in the SIGAR files. (Ironically, President Barack Obama fired McKiernan for not sounding positive enough about the prospects for victory.)

The movie is a tight 90 minutes and none of that time is wasted. Your time will not be wasted by watching it, either. However, presumably to keep the length down, some vital issues are ignored.

Craig Whitlock, the Washington Post reporter whose work is at the heart of “Bodyguard of Lies,” in a still from the documentary.

The most glaring absence is any discussion whatsoever of the role played by Pakistan and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate in supporting the Taliban by providing them with a safe haven, training and other resources. The one mention of how, in the face of the U.S. onslaught in late 2001, the Taliban’s leaders retreated into Pakistan comes from former CIA officer Phil Reilly, whose name is repeatedly mis-spelled on screen.

In his book, Whitlock describes how Washington’s refusal to call the Pakistanis to account frustrated SIGAR interviewees.

“…[T]he Bush administration was slow to recognize that [Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the ISI were playing both sides,” he writes. “U.S. officials said Bush glossed over persistent evidence that the Pakistani military under Musharraf still supported the Taliban, using the same covert channels and tactics it had developed to help anti-Soviet guerrillas during the 1980s. While Pakistan did not want to alienate Washington, its military establishment was determined to influence Afghanistan over the long term and … saw the Taliban as its best vehicle to exert control.”

This is all true. It’s also completely missing from the documentary that is based on the same sources as the book. This viewer would have relished a discussion on whether the United States could ever have won a conflict that was existential for the ISI and their Taliban clients, but not for their American adversaries.

Other topics on which the film touches only briefly deserve greater exploration (and perhaps a longer running time).

It takes until the 37th minute for the movie to feature an Afghan interviewee: Muhebullah Hamid, the only Taliban member from whom we hear. (Exactly what he does or did in the Taliban is difficult to confirm. A Google search of his name returns only publicity material from “Bodyguard of Lies,” and he is not listed in the index to Whitlock’s book.) He makes several trenchant remarks through the film, but it would have been interesting to hear more from the victors about where their enemies had gone wrong.

Taliban official Muhebullah Hamid, in a still from “Bodyguard of Lies.”

Did the United States focus on the wrong enemy?

In that context, it’s regrettable (albeit understandable, given that the documentary is trying to cover a 20-year war in an hour and a half) that the filmmakers don’t pay more attention to the decisions made during the conflict’s first months. For example, McKiernan’s statement that because, in the wake of 9/11, “the American people wanted revenge,” Bush did not have “any other recourse” but to go into Afghanistan the way he did could have been further interrogated, especially in light of retired SEAL officer Jeff Eggers’ observation that early in the war U.S. officials had a “tendency to aggregate” al-Qaida and the Taliban into one phrase, as if the two organizations were a single entity. “Arguably,” he says, “that was making the enemy larger than it needed to be.”

Eggers, who spent six years in the White House working for Presidents Bush and Obama, comes across as one of the film’s most thoughtful interviewees. He notes that after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, the United States had the opportunity to leverage its momentum “into some version of an outcome like a defeated al-Qaida and a mostly surrendered Taliban with some elements of a political settlement with some conditions.” He pauses before continuing. “We rejected that deal.”

Why did the United States not take the chance to end the war with honor and walk away? Did the initial success arrive so quickly that it failed to slake the administration’s thirst for revenge? Maybe the answer lies in another Eggers quote: “There tends to be a stronger bias to action than to inaction.”

That bias, Eggers suggests, might have led the United States into a trap laid by al-Qaida. “Because they are trying to provoke a reaction that could be counter-productive to our own interests, we have an obligation to think about whether or not we’re playing into the enemy’s strategy, and how we react to our terrorist attack,” he says.

The ignominious end to the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan. (A still from “Bodyguard of Lies”)

The unanswered question is whether the United States could have gone to war against al-Qaida (the group that conducted the 9/11 attacks) without also committing to a 20-year war against the Taliban (who had harbored al-Qaida but had no knowledge of the impending assault on the United States), a war that, according to the film, cost the United States what the film says were 4,376 American lives and more than a trillion dollars.

With the Taliban back in full control in Kabul and a new United Nations Security Council report estimating that al-Qaida and its affiliates can now call upon 25,000 fighters – a 5,000 percent increase from the estimated 500 they had on 9/11 – it remains a question worth asking.

Editor’s Note: This article contains at least one Amazon hyperlink to a product. If you buy a product after clicking on the link, as part of the Amazon Affiliates program, The High Side will earn a small commission.

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substack.com · Sean D. NaylorFeb 16, 2026∙ Paid

19. Marking Losar, the Tibetan New Year

​Comment: SECSTATE conducting public diplomacy (an influence operation). He is making a statement. I wonder what will be the PRC/CCP response. 

I hope we can do the same for Taiwan.

Marking Losar, the Tibetan New Year

Press Statement

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State

February 17, 2026

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/02/marking-losar-the-tibetan-new-year/

I extend my warmest wishes to all those celebrating Losar, the Tibetan New Year. On this first day of the Year of the Fire Horse, we celebrate the fortitude and resilience of Tibetans around the world. The United States remains committed to supporting the unalienable rights of Tibetans and their distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage.

I wish Tibetans everywhere a healthy and prosperous year ahead. Losar Tashi Delek and Happy New Year!

On this auspicious occasion, I am also pleased to announce that I have designated Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) Riley M. Barnes to serve as the United States Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues.

​20. So, We Have a Maritime Action Plan

​Summary:

CDR Salamander argues the Maritime Action Plan, produced on time per an April 2025 Executive Order and signed by Marco Rubio as National Security Advisor and Russ Vought as OMB Director, should be read as economic, industrial policy, and budget guidance rather than a naval strategy. He highlights four pillars: rebuilding shipbuilding capacity (only eight US yards can build ships over 400 feet, under 1 percent of global commercial shipping built in the US, Maritime Prosperity Zones, universal fees on foreign-built vessels entering US ports); reforming maritime workforce education and training (fix deferred maintenance at the Merchant Marine Academy and support state academies); protecting the maritime industrial base (investigate PRC threats); and strengthening national security and resilience (increase US-flagged fleet, prioritize robotics and autonomy, boost Arctic presence, deregulation). He says the plan can anchor follow-on legislation but requires long-term, bipartisan, multi-administration follow-through.

Comment: He forgot to mention the important contributions of our allies (Korea and Japan - MASGA)

So, We Have a Maritime Action Plan

...now for the followthrough...

CDR Salamander

Feb 17, 2026

https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/so-we-have-a-maritime-action-plan?utm

In the second half of the last Midrats Podcast, Mark and I discussed the recently released Maritime Action Plan. I still don’t understand why we release such documents on a Friday before a three-day weekend, but whoever makes that call should be left with the next bar tab.

To their great credit however, the April 2025 Executive Order demanded a deliverable, and they got it done on time.

If you are looking for a naval strategy or other “this type of system doing that” report, you won’t find it here, and nor should you.

This is signed by Marco Rubio as National Security Advisor and Russ Vought as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. It is best seen as an economic, industrial policy, and budget priorities document. It isn’t primarily focused on the deployable fleet, but something foundational and arguably more important that everything else is built on.

Here are its four pillars, and the parts of it that got my attention.

• Pillar I: Rebuild Shipbuilding Capacity and Capabilities
• Only 8 yards in the USA that can build ships greater than 400 feet
• Less than 1% of the world’s commercial shipping was built in the USA
• Maritime Prosperity Zones
• Focus on geographical diversity, including the Great Lakes and our river systems
• Universal fees on foreign built vessels bringing products to American ports
• Pillar II: Reform Workforce Education and Training
• Fix the deferred maintenance disgrace at the Merchant Marine Academy
• Help lift up state Merchant Marine Acedemies
• Workforce development
• Pillar III: Protect the Maritime Industrial Base
• Investigate People’s Republic of China’s threats to our industrial base
• Pillar IV: National Security, Economic Security, and Industrial Resilience
• Increase US flagged fleet
• Prioritize robotics and autonomous systems
• Boost arctic presence
• Deregulation

They wind things up with some solid discussions about deregulation and proposed legislation. That last bit…that is under-appreciated.

If used properly, the Maritime Action Plan is a solid “Ref. A.” for follow-on legislation and programs. It gives someone the ability to have the handy hook of, “IAW the Maritime Action Plan…”

It also is a useful information source for leaders who have a lot on their plate but are not steeped in maritime issues. They know there are problems that need to be addressed, but don’t fully understand where to place the levers of power they have access to. This can be used as a guide to do just that.

In a way, a barrier removal exercise is key to see where we are, where we want to be, and what barriers are between the two. This does that.

Give it a read for the details but take this to heart: besides renovations to the Merchant Marine Academy and a few other side items, the core of this requires action that will not have a quick turnaround. This will need to be a multi-administration and bipartisan effort to be a success. This should be a thoroughly non-partisan effort. All sides “win” with a strong maritime industrial base, well capitalized national merchant marine, and a Navy second to none.

To enable that, both parties should ensure that their leading people driving this effort to rebuild our maritime infrastructure have exceptionally good playground manners and a reputation for healthy competition but not bringing a baggage train of toxicity with them as they walk through the door.

This effort is too important.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

https://apstrategy.org/

Executive Director, Korea Regional Review

https://www.upi.com/Korea-Regional-Review/

Editor-at-large, Small Wars Journal

https://smallwarsjournal.com/

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com