Small Wars Journal

  In a 2025 report for the Journal of Strategic Security titled “Surveying New Battlegrounds: Ukraine and the Future of Cognitive Warfare,” authors Dr. Chad M. Briggs and Anita Tusor contend that modern conflict increasingly targets social perception. The report analyses the war in Ukraine to illustrate the expanding role of cognitive warfare in shaping beliefs, manipulating narratives, and weakening …
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The post Lessons from Ukraine on Cognitive Warfare: Journal of Strategic Security appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

“Proxy Warfare: The Missing Facet of Australian Defence Policy” by Andrew Maher (Inter Populum, Mar. 2026). Andrew Maher argues in his latest article, “Proxy Warfare: The Missing Facet of Australian Defence Policy,” that Australian defense policy overlooks proxy warfare as a central instrument of strategic competition. Maher examines historical cases from World War II through the Cold War to show …
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The post Proxy Warfare: The Missing Facet of Australian Defence Policy appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Army Science and & Technology, Systems Adaptive Red Team, UAS and Threat Experiment 2-16 (sUAS News, Aug. 2016) Published in August 2016, nearly a decade before small drones became a defining feature of modern warfare in places such as Ukraine and the Middle East, this sUAS News article forecast the operational threat posed by small unmanned aerial systems. The article …
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The post A 2016 Warning About Weaponized Drones: The Army’s Early sUAS Threat Experiment appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access SOF News HERE. SOF Weekly Brief – Mar 16, 2026 March 16, 2026 SOF News Update 0 https://sof.news/update/20260316/ Curated news, analysis, and commentary on special operations, national security, and global conflicts. Executive Summary This weekly briefing summarizes developments in special operations forces (SOF), global conflicts, intelligence, and national security from the past week. This past week saw expanding Pakistan–Afghanistan interstate strikes, increased NATO Arctic …
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Abstract  While there have been many calls to develop effective information security strategies against malign information operations, a gap remains in the systematization of available approaches. This article proposes a framework that outlines a broad conceptualization of information security approaches, dividing them into reactive defensive, proactive defensive, and offensive measures.  Introduction   Information threats are often perceived as among the most …
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The post Beyond the Menu of Options: A Taxonomy for Information Security Strategies appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

An anniversary reflection on leadership, courage, and the unrecorded heroism of Desert Storm Thirty-five years ago, in the predawn darkness of February 24, 1991, American soldiers prepared to do what they had trained relentlessly to accomplish: breach the enemy defenses of the Iraqi 48th Infantry Division and execute the ground offensive of Operation Desert Storm. Through a landscape obscured by …
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The post The 38 Minutes That Defined a Generation of Warriors appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. SOF News: Epic Fury Update – Mar 15, 2026 2. From Kyiv to Taipei: Three Theatres, Much to Learn. The Big Five, 15 March edition by Mick Ryan 3. The Split-Screen War: Finding a way out of a war gone badly wrong by Sir Lawrence Freedman 4. For Xi, Iran War …
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The post 3/15/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Acces SOF News HERE.   Epic Fury Update – Mar 15, 2026 March 15, 2026 SOF News Middle East 0 https://sof.news/middle-east/epic-fury-update/ Update Summary of Operation Epic Fury. As the Iran War enters the third week the U.S. and Israel air attacks continue, Iranian leadership and top military leaders eliminated, thousands of targets destroyed or damaged in Iran, missile and drone attacks persist against Gulf …
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The post SOF News: Epic Fury Update – Mar 15, 2026 appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. The Strategy We Are Not Prosecuting: Options for Senior Leaders in the Iran War 2. Palantir Demos Show How the Military Could Use AI Chatbots to Generate War Plans 3. US Army officers say battlefield leaders facing new drone threats have another problem to deal with — it’s information overload …
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The post 3/14/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

  As unarmed US drones circle Mexico’s northern border supporting joint counter fentanyl efforts under the banner of cartel surveillance, the line between operational cooperation and political friction has never been clear. Relationships between the United States and Mexico have remained tense due to ongoing issues with border security, ongoing trade complications, and the current political climate between the two …
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The post Congress Must Rein in Drone Diplomacy for Security Cooperation Before it Backfires appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Latin America has some of the highest levels of social inequality in the world. That is why it is one of the few parts of the planet, besides universities, where people still take Marxism seriously and why drug cartels flourish. The rich just get richer and the poor struggle to survive however they can. One consequence of this is a …
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The post Skyscrapers and Shacks: Report from Guatemala City appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

  The designation of major Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) signals more than a policy escalation. It reflects an emerging doctrinal reinterpretation of irregular warfare. What is unfolding is not counterterrorism applied indiscriminately to criminals, but a growing recognition in Washington that certain transnational criminal networks function as coercive campaigners—actors capable of shaping state behavior, eroding governance …
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The post Criminal Governance and Strategic Competition: Redefining Irregular Warfare in Mexico appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. Governing Cognitive Warfare at Ecosystem Speed: Why America Can’t Organize for Influence—and What It Takes to Compete 2. US allies near China on edge as weapons shift from Asia to Iran 3. Spate of missile deployments points to ‘division of labor’ with Taiwan 4. How Hegseth Came to See Moral Purpose …
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The post 3/13/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, hold a press briefing at the Pentagon March 13, 2026. For more on the Department of War, visit: http://www.war.gov

The post Secretary of War and CJCS, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Hold a Press Briefing at the Pentagon appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Introduction: The Prediction Confirmed Two weeks ago, in “We Bombed the Wrong Target,” I argued that Operation Epic Fury had addressed the headline, Iran’s nuclear program, while leaving the story largely untouched: Tehran’s regional proxy network and its underlying strategy of asymmetric resistance. I warned that “the United States has addressed the headline. It now faces the story, and it …
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The post The Strategy We Are Not Prosecuting: Options for Senior Leaders in the Iran War appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract This article examines Russia’s use of cognitive warfare to target Europe’s populace to disrupt Western aid to Ukraine. Using the “firehose of falsehood” model, Moscow disseminates high-volume, multi-source disinformation aimed at injecting pro-Russian talking points into democratic discourse, which influences selectorates to resist continued Ukrainian support. A case study of Rheinmetall’s cancelled factory in Grossenhain, Germany illustrates how these …
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The post The Kremlin’s Cognitive Assault on Europe appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

A War That Reconfigured Eurasia Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made Europe’s eastern flank the main battleground for modern great-power politics. However, the war’s infrastructure has become more Eurasian than just European. As NATO countries increased their military, intelligence, training, and financial support for Ukraine, Moscow responded by expanding its strategic depth to the east and south. It did this …
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The post How Russia Leveraged Asian Partnerships in the Ukraine War appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract The 2025 government shutdown, the longest in modern American history at 43 days, exposed a critical vulnerability in US national defense: the military’s dependence on a dysfunctional appropriations process. This article argues that the United States should establish a dedicated war tax and sovereign-wealth-style trust fund to insulate military readiness from political gridlock, restore the historical norm of shared …
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The post America Needs a War Tax appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

In the time it takes Washington to schedule an interagency meeting, an adversary can frame an incident for half the world. That is the central problem of cognitive warfare. Meaning now hardens into public and elite “reality” at a speed our institutions were never designed to match. The United States does not lack tools, talent, or awareness in this space. …
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The post Governing Cognitive Warfare at Ecosystem Speed: Why America Can’t Organize for Influence—and What It Takes to Compete appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The Global Extremism Papers – Inaugural Issue (2026) presents a set of studies that reflect the Program on Extremism’s commitment to rigorous, evidence-driven, and policy-relevant research on terrorism and violent extremism. The studies featured here illuminate several recurring patterns. Authors examine how extremist actors, from ISIS networks in Afghanistan and Iraq to far-right groups in Europe and the United States, are …
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