Small Wars Journal

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. Trump’s war has destroyed the illusion of US military supremacy 2. Defense Startups Get Boost as Pentagon Looks Beyond Biggest Contractors 3. The U.S. Wants to Break China’s Drone Dominance. Here’s Where It Will Struggle. 4. Oil Tanker Hijacking Stokes New Fear in Gulf Region 5. Avoiding the Knife Fight: Defeating Iran’s …
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The post 5/3/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

In a Hurriyet Daily News piece titled “Ukraine bets on battlefield AI amid weapons autonomy race,” two vital points are made clear about Ukraine’s use of AI. First, AI is becoming a survival tool, not an enhancement. Ukraine is using it to compress decision cycles, sustain operations under heavy electronic warfare, and offset Russia’s advantages in mass. Autonomy at the …
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The post Ukraine Bets on AI appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. Trump Tells Congress Iran Conflict Is Over, Sidestepping War Authorization 2. Iran War Gives U.S.’s Rivals a Real-Time Look at Its Firepower 3. China’s ‘Teapot’ Refiners, Targeted by U.S., Offer Financial Lifeline to Iran 4. Arizona State University wins federal contract to offer war and strategy degree to government leaders 5. ‘We …
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The post 5/2/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

DOW FY27 Budget Request: SecWar and Chairman Caine Testify Before the House Armed Services Committee Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, testify before the House Armed Services Committee on the War Department’s FY27 budget request in Washington on April 29, 2026. For more on the Department of War, …
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The post DOW FY27 Budget Request: SecWar and Chairman Caine Testify Before the House Armed Services Committee appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. Iran Is Grasping for a Solution to an American Blockade It Can’t Break 2. The Myth of the ‘Escalation Trap’ 3. Trump Poised to Defy Congress on War Authorization 4. Pentagon calls timeout on War Powers 5. Is China Using Iran as a Proxy Against the U.S.? 6. China’s Legal Warfare Against Taiwan …
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The post 5/1/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

This Africa Defense Forum article, “South Africa Turns to the Military to Fight Crime,” explains how the South African government has deployed the military domestically to support police in combating escalating organized crime and violence. It describes Operation Prosper as a response to an acute crisis, with officials noting that “we are losing between 26,000 and 30,000 people to murder …
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The post South Africa’s Crime War and the Global Challenge of Criminal Insurgency appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

When Ghaleb Krame cancelled a breakfast in Ciudad Victoria, he narrowly avoided a cartel commando attack that later left the restaurant riddled with gunfire. Days afterward, he learned a bounty had been placed on his head. Krame’s trajectory—from war exposure in Lebanon as a teenager, to roles inside Mexico’s security system, to academic and advisory work—produces an outlook grounded in …
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The post Ghaleb Krame on Cartels, Drones, and Mexico’s Response appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Andrew Rolander writes in “Designed to Lose: The Institutional Features that Undermine US Irregular Warfare” that the US defense establishment fails at irregular warfare because of three structural biases embedded in institutional culture rather than in doctrine or resources. He emphasizes that this bias in the strategic discourse has “created a dangerous false choice: Irregular warfare is either a supporting …
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The post The Structural Biases That Undermine US Irregular Warfare | Modern War Institute appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access SOF News HERE.   Epic Fury Update – May 1, 2026 May 1, 2026 SOF News Middle East 0 Executive Summary From a kinetic standpoint, operational activity in Operation Epic Fury has remained limited over the past week. The ceasefire has been extended—reportedly on an open-ended basis—while the dual U.S. and Iranian maritime restrictions remain in effect. These measures continue to impose …
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The post Epic Fury Update – May 1, 2026 appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract China’s military modernization has expanded the technical capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and improved the professional development of its noncommissioned officers (NCOs). However, these advances have not fully transformed the centralized leadership culture that governs decision-making. Drawing on PLA personnel studies and lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine, this article argues that China’s modernization may still encounter …
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The post The Limits of China’s NCO Corps and Future Warfare appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

On March 10, 2026, Central Bank of Russia’s Governor Elvira Nabiullina announced that the digital ruble was on-track to launch in September 2026. Since initial pilot testing in mid-2023, Russia’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) has often been thought of as a potential tool to counter Western sanctions, with this being even more important due to increased sanctions resulting from …
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The post How China’s Fear of Secondary Sanctions Pushed Moscow into Leveraging Stablecoins to Reshape Financial Warfare appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

I grew up in Bartonville, Illinois, a small town stitched to the perimeter of the 182nd Airlift Wing, an Air National Guard base that has been flying C-130s since 1995 and deployed aircraft and over 350 personnel to the Middle East for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Those planes flew over my house. They carried one of my best friends. However, like …
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The post The Hidden Subsidy of the Citizen Soldier appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

By Katelyn Reinhart for ASU News April 30, 2026 Arizona State University has been selected by the Department of Defense to offer a new master’s degree in war and strategy, using intensive seminars, war games and rigorous coursework to train our nation’s greatest minds in military and defense strategy. Beginning this fall in Washington, D.C., the program will offer up to 24 …
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The post Arizona State University wins federal contract to offer war and strategy degree to government leaders appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Washington’s approach to cartels emphasizes designations and strike authority. The operational center of gravity sits elsewhere. That center of gravity, argues Henry Ziemer in an article for Lawfare, is sustained access to U.S.-sourced firearms moving south across the border.  The Picture Tracing data consistently attributes large volumes of recovered weapons in Mexico to U.S. origin points, with demand concentrated on …
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The post Time to Damn the Iron River appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

“Can AI Pass the US Army War College?” by Kevin Boyce, John Nagl, and Kristan Wheaton at US Army War College Parameters (April 2026). This latest US Army War College report finds that all four commercial AI systems they tested in early 2026 passed the rigorous USAWC oral comprehensive examination. The authors designed “MilBench,” a domain-specific benchmark that applied the …
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The post The US Army War College Tested Four AI Systems on Its Capstone Exam. They All Passed. appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. The Real Threat to Taiwan: America Is Preparing for the Wrong Kind of Crisis 2. As Hormuz Traffic Stalls, U.S. Pitches New Coalition to Get Ships Moving Again 3. Hegseth Testifies for First Time Since Iran War Began. Here Are Five Takeaways. 4. Trump’s national security strategy comes to the Philippines …
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The post 4/30/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access SOF News HERE.   Monthly Drone Report – April 30, 2026 April 30, 2026 SOF News Drones 0 News updates on unmanned aerial systems (UASs) including latest drone technology and use in conflicts around the world. The rapid proliferation of low-cost unmanned systems is fundamentally reshaping modern warfare, compressing operational depth and eroding traditional assumptions about rear-area security, medical evacuation, and force …
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The post Monthly Drone Report – April 30, 2026 appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Last month, Jack Dorsey, as CEO of Block, announced layoffs of nearly 40% of the workforce, citing AI as the reason. IBM, UPS, and Klarna had already done the same. Last week, President Trump ordered federal agencies to cease business with Anthropic after a dispute with the Pentagon, where the AI company insisted on restrictions preventing their products’ use in …
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The post The Grievance Economy appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Historical failures, from the Challenger disaster to the Bay of Pigs invasion, reveal a persistent paradox where leaders and organizations suppress the very critical thinking they acknowledge as vital. This phenomenon stems from deep-seated cognitive biases like groupthink, confirmation bias, and motivated reasoning. The proliferation of artificial intelligence now presents the risk of amplifying this weakness by creating sophisticated human-AI …
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The post The Case for Engineering an AI Partner for Intellectual Honesty in the National Security Ecosystem appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract Contemporary warfare’s emphasis on destruction capacity and cost imposition rests on a fundamental misreading of what sustains the will to fight. Drawing on behavioral and brain research and historical cases, it shows that “devoted actors” whose personal and collective identity is fused with sacred values will sustain extreme sacrifice and mobilize broader populations. As a result, they can blunt …
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The post Why the Strong Lose and the Weak Become Strong appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.