Small Wars Journal

Pakistan as Facilitator: The Islamabad Moment  On April 11, 2026, the world’s attention converged on a single city. Islamabad was placed on lockdown: roads were sealed, 10,000 security personnel were deployed, and the Serena Hotel became the venue for what Al Jazeera described as the highest-level meeting between the two sides since the 1979 Islamic revolution, face-to-face negotiations between the …
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The post The Last Interlocutor: Imran Khan, Pakistan’s Leadership Vacuum, and the Search for a Regional Peacemaker appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract: The covert deployment of advanced drones to countries in conflict by third-party states is intensifying modern warfare and undermining international peace-making in ways that are not yet fully understood.  It is now well established that they can be mass-produced by middle powers such as Türkiye and Iran and deployed in swarms.  What is less appreciated is how third-party states …
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The post Sabotage from Afar: How Undeclared Drone Armies Prolong War and Derail Peace appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Anthropic presents itself as a company that takes the risks of artificial intelligence seriously, but its record does not support that claim. The company occupies a position of fundamental ethical contradiction: its CEO has publicly and specifically predicted that AI will eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs, drive unemployment to 20 percent, and cause an “unusually painful” shock to …
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The post Selective Virtue: Anthropic, the Pentagon, and the Contradictions of AI Governance in Wartime appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Germany is about to place a U.S. Army colonel inside the German Army Command’s Operations Division, as reported by Politico’s Ibrahim Naber and Paul McLeary in “Berlin deepens military ties with Washington while Merz-Trump rift grows.” The official line points to optimizing “joint operational capability within NATO.” Read more closely, and it signals military cohesion holding firm even as political …
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The post Command-Level Integration Between U.S. and German Militaries appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. SOF at the Edge: AI and Autonomy Take Center Stage at USSOCOM Hearing 2. SOCOM adding AI, autonomy ‘at every level,’ commander says 3. US intelligence examining how Iran would react to Donald Trump declaring victory 4. Trump Tells Aides to Prepare for Extended Blockade of Iran 5. Opinion | Why is the …
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The post 4/29/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Small Wars Journal congratulates our colleague, Matthew Levengood (Graduate Fellow), on his recent acceptance into the Military Writers Guild. Matthew’s commitment to the profession, both in uniform and in scholarship, reflects the kind of rigor and service that defines this community. We are grateful for his contributions to Small Wars Journal and his continued dedication to advancing thoughtful discourse in …
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The post Matthew Levengood of SWJ Joins the Military Writers Guild appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Beyond Misuse: Artificial Intelligence, Grievance, and the Future Landscape of Political Violence, by Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (April 2026). Veilleux-Lepage’s latest CTC report, Beyond Misuse, argues that terrorism studies have captured only one dimension of AI’s relationship with political violence. The field has organized itself around documenting current misuse, projecting future exploitation, and developing counterterrorism applications, …
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The post Artificial Intelligence and the Structural Drivers of Political Violence | Combating Terrorism Center appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Editor’s Note: this article is being republished with the permission of the Irregular Warfare Initiative as part of a republishing arrangement between IWI and SWJ. The original article was published on April 17, 2026 and is available here.  The U.S. is losing the war on sentiment in the Global South, where the world’s most economically vulnerable countries rely on larger powers for economic …
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The post Economic Warfare Reimagined: Insurance as a Tool of U.S. Strategic Influence appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract Following the Afghan Taliban’s 2021 takeover and the consequent revival of the Pakistani Taliban, Pakistan’s counterterrorism doctrine has undergone a notable shift. Previously, large-scale military operations defined Pakistan’s kinetic response, but the post-resurgence doctrine has increasingly relied on cross-border airstrikes and small-scale intelligence-based operations; while the former have drawn significant attention, the latter have flown under the radar. This …
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The post The Limits of Pakistan’s New Counterterrorism Doctrine Against the TTP appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The following are excerpts from the testimony of Admiral Frank M. Bradley, USN, Commander, USSOCOM, at an April 28th hearing before the full Senate Armed Services Committee.    Sustained investments in RDT&E remain critical to maintaining SOF’s technological edge (in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and autonomous systems) and operational superiority. USSOCOM is modernizing how it generates requirements, …
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The post SOF at the Edge: AI and Autonomy Take Center Stage at USSOCOM Hearing appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

We are honored to announce our very first Small Wars Journal Event. This event is co-sponsored by Cactus and Tryzub, the Center for American Institutions, the Future Security Initiative, Inter Populum, the Melikian Center, and the Ukrainian American ASU Alumni Club. A delegation of Ukrainian soldiers will share firsthand accounts from the front lines of the ongoing war in Ukraine …
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The post War from the Ground Up: Ukrainian Soldiers Speak about their Experiences (5/4/26 SWJ Event) appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. Opinion | It’s Way Too Early to Declare Defeat in Iran 2. Claudia Sheinbaum Is Learning the Price of Appeasing Trump 3. Head of U.S. military in South Korea calls for ‘kill web’ linking Seoul, Tokyo and Manila 4. Operationalizing US Forces Japan: Why Japan Is the Optimal Location for a …
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The post 4/28/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Small Wars Journal would like to shine a light on the important work being done at the U.S. Army Mad Scientist Laboratory. They have announced the launch of a new virtual Speaker Series designed to convene subject matter experts from across government, academia, and industry. The series will explore a range of topics central to the future operational environment, including …
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The post Army Mad Scientist Laboratory Launches New Virtual Speaker Series appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

“Russian Private Military Companies May Become a Security Threat to Their Hosts in Africa,” published by David Kong at the Irregular Warfare Center’s IW Perspectives, argues that Russian private military companies (PMCs) now pose a dire security threat to the African nations that host them. Following Prigozhin’s death in 2023, the Kremlin absorbed the Wagner Group under the Afrika Corps …
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The post Caught in the Crossfire: African Host Nations, Russian PMCs, and the Shadow of the Ukraine War appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Current and Past Experiences Have Shifted the “Greater Kurdistan” Project from a Political Goal to a Cultural Discourse. The Kurdish people are the world’s largest stateless nation. The geography of Kurdistan was first partitioned by the Treaty of Amasya (1555) between the Safavid and Ottoman Empires. The region under Iranian control is known as East Kurdistan (Rojhelat).  In the early 20th century, the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the aftermath of World War I …
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The post The Kurds: Realism Over Separatism appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract Contemporary stabilization missions often take place in environments where political agreements exist, but the structures needed to carry them out are weak. Drawing on lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan, this article proposes the Clear–Shield–Sustain (CSS) model as a practical framework built around a unified execution headquarters that controls transitions between combat, security, and reconstruction while maintaining strict accountability over …
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The post From Mandate to Execution: The Clear–Shield–Sustain Model for Contested Stabilization appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Natalia Telepneva. Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961-1975 University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 2022. ISBN: 978-1469665856. $39.95 (Paperback) In recent years, Russian operatives have once again fanned out across Africa—not as Marxist-Leninist “internationalists,” but as contractors and security advisers flying the banner of the Wagner Group …
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The post Intermediaries of Liberation: Soviet Bureaucrats and the Cold War in Africa appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The call with the theater commander ended the way they usually did, with a denial. The Corps commander set the phone down, looked at his staff, and ordered two divisions to withdraw from the border of a key Pacific ally. For weeks, the theater headquarters had refused his requests to employ psychological operations and public affairs specialists to counter a …
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The post Deterrence in the South China Sea Fails Without Information Authority appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

An April 27th Reuters report titled “Renewables in vogue as Iran war drives up Europe power prices” highlights a pattern that’s unfolding across developed economies. States with expansive renewable and nuclear power foundations are managing to protect their citizens from wholesale power increases as a result of the Iran War’s impact on the global natural gas market. Those without are …
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The post The Renewable Shield: Energy Lessons from the Iran War appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

At Eglin Air Force Base, the Pentagon staged a rehearsal drawn straight from Ukraine’s drone war. Special operators replicated a layered assault using commercial quadcopters, frequency-hopping links, fiber-optic tethers, and LTE-enabled remote launches. The point, as Defense One reports, was less demonstration than diagnosis. The result cut against years of counter-drone development. U.S. forces have possessed capable tools, yet lack …
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The post Learning Under Fire at Home: The Pentagon Rehearses Ukraine’s Drone War | Defense One appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.